Up against the Yellow Jersey

8am this morning in a modern slightly bohemian looking flat in South West London it went down something like this...

Girlfriend: So what you cooking tonight then?
Me: Er... you mean tomorrow right?
GF: I thought you were cooking tonight
Me: Nah babes!
GF: Oh no, you're not racing are you? I thought you raced on Tuesday
Me: Nope it was rained off...(cheeky wink)
GF: Its gonna rain tonight though?
Me: Yeah only light showers, if that(cheeky smile!)
GF: (Shakes head)Can you take the re cycling stuff out when you leave please?
Me: Maybe (still smiling)
GF: Pretends to glare (shows me her tongue and her middle finger)

Ten hours later I'm on the Kitsmead Lane circuit in my car chewing the fat on all things cycling wise with Adam (TSN). The weather for tonight's E123 handicap looks seriously schizophrenic - alternating between sunny spring like patches and bleak rain. We both joked whether more than 10 people were gonna show up. For some reason I mentioned to Adam that I thought Sean Yates would show up...mmm.

Now you would've thought arriving 90 minutes before everyone else would mean I'd have more than enough time for the perfect warm up. Like I said you would have thought...I'm not sure where the best part of an hour went but my warm up only lasted 15 mins. In fact by the time I got to the line the 4ths had just pulled away.

A yellow and black head count revealed four Addiscombe CC riders (Stu, George, Keith and I) on duty. When they called the 3rd cat vets forward I recognised a familiar face with seriously impressive but equally familiar calves. 'Hey this should be fun I'm gonna be riding in the same group as a former TDF Yellow jersey wearer'. Yes indeedy the one an only Sean Yates. As is de-rigeur in these Surrey League handicaps the thru and off got going right from the gun. The task in hand - gobble up the 4ths and don't get caught by the by the big dawgs from the E12's

Yay! so here I am T&Oing with one of Britain's most famous ex cycling pro's great stuff. Mmm well not that great. Don't get me wrong, Sean's Da man an all that but I gotta be honest with you guys in terms of riding style I was expecting "souplesse" not this bow legged, robotic power stomping he presented.

So after a couple of steadish laps with Yates and Yates mainly at the helm (yeah the Christian one was there too) us 'Joe racer types' were coping well. The Yates bro's kept things just on the right side of 'intense' such that each pull ensured that you redlined only for a few brief seconds. By the 3rd lap of the three mile loop all the early shift workers had taken a back seat and only about six of us were pulling the train.

Now the light showers had briefly threaten and teased us for a while. But by the 4th lap of the three mile loop a more sinister darker heavier inclemency had arrived. Yes indeed, now it was properly raining. One moment my feet were toasty warm the next they were instantly cold and dripping wet.

The Yates Bro's had been good to us up to this point but by now their gentle toying digs were occurring at an increasing frequency. Then in a classic now you see us now you don't moment they'd suddenly got close to 60 metres on us. In the words of Huw Williams (Cycling weekly/ACC) the rest of us collectively pinned our ears back and reduced the gap back down to around 20 metres. HANDS UP WHO'S EVER EASED UP WHEN ON THE VERGE OF BRINGING BACK A BREAKAWAY!...

Have I mentioned the rain and the hailstones yet? Oh my bad, what about the thunder and the lighting? So someone at the front took a miscalculated breather and Sean and Christian unceremoniously fcuked off up the road. They probably had some urgent business to attend or something, after all we were now riding in flood type conditions. SSShit! why would anyone let alone blokes age 40+ decide to do this on a Thursday evening? I mean we could've had our feet up at home on the sofa watching football or making a nice meal for our partners;-)

So whad'ya think happen next then? Do you think we kept riding hard or slowed down and made a club run out of it. Neither really, we just rode tempo and tried to stay up right especially on the treacherous streamlike final turn up to the finish line. I vaguely remembered racing in wet cold conditions at Hillingdon some years back but that was a few wet splashes in comparison to this stuff.

By now it was absolutely belting it down and the hailstones were stinging. A few caught me in the eyelids and I shouted out in pain. A bloke behind me shouted back even louder either in pain of sympathy I don't know. It was quite funny for about three seconds. There were other problems too, it was becoming increasingly difficult to see under the tree lined road; it was really dark and the headlights of emerging trucks looked like weird space vehicles coming to land.

It was pointless sitting on wheels you just could not see through the spray of water in your face. On the bell lap the rain relented slightly and I decided to hit the bunch with my best anaerobic effort. It got me about forty metres and this Scottish guy who was really strong rode across to me. I recovered on his wheel and we then began taking turns. It probably lasted all of three minutes but in total it felt like twenty.

As you know attacks on the last lap of a race rarely stick and we were quickly back in the arms of the bunch. Cold, wet and miserable? Yeah, but whatever. I attacked again. Less of a gap this time bringing three guys with me. The plan was to get a gap and good position before the final turn. No such luck; and I negotiated the final turn like a shopping trolling with a dodgy front wheel. I was suddenly twenty feet behind everyone else. I caught up with the tail enders but that was it. I rolled in just outside the top ten and quickly handed back my race number, 37. Quite apt really cause despite a change of clothing I never stopped shivering for the nearly forty minutes. Race Winner, Christian Yates. Chapeau