Otley Town Centre Cycle Races

Otley is the only local race of the year and it is also one of the biggest in the country. Thousands of people turn up and provide an amazing atmosphere. You'd be mistaken into thinking its the finish of a big ProTour race, and indeed, some of the riders in the Elite race have and are participating in ProTour races.

Luckily, the two day spell of brilliant weather we've been having up these parts recently managed to hold on till the big day and it offered us a fast, dry circuit.

The finish area of the race is packed.


As always, Otley is a positions game, a fast moving chess competition. The narrow roads and twisty circuit makes life very difficult for you if your not at or towards the front in the pack when lining up at the start. A silent melee ensues when we are let out of the holding pen and onto the course. 


Down to matters in the Chevin Cycles Classic Race.
From the flag the Mountavation boys where quick to start, sprinting though the chicane and partly up the hill before slowing to a more sedentary pace and letting all the others catch up. From here, the pace was set by riders from various teams. 
Attacks went every lap as riders tried to make their mark on their local race. Dirtwheels, Mountavation, Haribo, Clay Cross, We ♥ Mountains and many more had a bash at staying away. I even had a go. Half way through, going up the hill past the church I put some power into the pedals and broke away. I quickly bridged to Alex Mitchell from We ♥ Mountains and together we built up a gap of about 15-20secs. Coming onto the finishing straight, the commentator said something about a Kellogg's prime so we both sprinted, with Mitchell just edging the win. Coming through the chicane and hill I came to the front again and put on the power to open up the gap a bit more. I looked behind to gauge the distance and my breakaway partner had exhausted himself and had been swallowed by the bunch. Knowing that I couldn't stay away by myself for another 7 laps I sat up and conserved my energy. 

Me and Alex Mitchell in one of the many breaks

The entire pace of the race was very consistent, with no big surges in speed, even round the corners. Compared to last year, the first group was also larger as the organizers had paid more attention to ability. This made it a lot harder to move up but I did whenever a gap became available.


The race stayed together and with 3 laps to go I made a very conscious effort to move up. Once I did I switched off mentally and lost those places. On the last lap I was panicking a little because I was sitting in around 20th place. Up the hill I put in a big surge to move up, but came to a stop when the riders up front fanned out and blocked the round. Round the corners I moved up one or two more places. On the top straight, luckily, more gaps appeared and I easily moved up around ten places. On the corner before the decent the race was more or less decided, because with everyone spinning away their top gears, the was no great difference of speed between the riders. Just before the last 90 degree left-hander, a space appeared on the right so I jumped into it.
Once round, I opened up my sprint only to slam my breaks on someone blocked me.
He then moved to the left and I opend my sprint up once again, moving up a further two places before the line. 


The rider that blocked me then decided not to give me enough room on the chicane, so I had to wear out half my brake blocks down as I tried to turn 35mph into a crash friendly speed. Luckily, I more fell onto the barriers rather than a full on collision and was unhurt.

Coming back to the HQ, I was slightly relieved I had come 10th, an improvement on last year!

Lee Tunnicliffe of Clay Cross RT narrowly won my race over a charging Jake Womersley  of Sportscover Altura Haribo Academy. James King of Mountavation came across the line third. Well done fellas!

Organisation wise the management was spot on. A few suggestions for next year would be some more speakers up the chicane and hill, and a bit further back the last corner. I even heard someone mention having a big screen with a live feed, but maybe thats a bit opptimistic. Maybe in a couple of years time when cycling as a sport is a lot bigger!

Nettle Soup - Tom Simpson National Junior Road Race

Sunday brought the National Junior Series to Yorkshire. I think I need to resit my english GCSE or geography or whatever because we saw this on the way there;

Undetered from the momentary confusion and from any threats from Highwaymen

we arrived at Tom Simpson's second home, Harworth ("whore-woof").

 A cycling haven in Britain? Sadly no, but it had a couple old men doing the shopping rounds

on even older bikes;

Come along Gerard, the bread will become stale!

No, what I really like about this place is the local boozer that has a small shrine museum to Tom Simpson;

Eyup! They nicked my bike! Also, why is the an American National Champs Jersey here?

Quick history lesson over, we move to the racing.

A relatively small field of 60 of the country's best riders (see what I've done there?) started on a warm but overcast day. On previous occasions this course was fairly tough with its two short drags, but back then I worked on the farm a bit more;

We fell on hard time since..

And so this time round the hills were a lot easier. I even had a shot at glory on lap 2 or 3, but nobody else had the same idea, and they chased me down as ruthlessly as this;

So I sat on for the rest of the race, making my way to the front whenever I could hear the screech of the commisaire's car. 

Unfortunatly, with two laps to go, I was invloved in a crash. Coming up the hill towards the finish, a crash happened to the right of me. The rider (he shall remain nameless) fell against me and pushed me onto the grass verge. Me, using my god-like bike-handling skill, remained upright and started looking for a way back in. God himself was so jealous of my skills that he decided to stategically place a rather large stone in the undergrowth, thus causing me to graciously somersault over my handlebars and disappear into a ditch full of those tickly nettle plants. 

In my mind, I thought I looked like this;

In reality, it was probably more like this;

I was up before I was down and gathered by belongings, jumped on the bike and chased the bunch that was disappearing over the crest of the hill. Sadly, though, it was not to be and I never got back on, but out of sheer stubborness I finished the race with, some, of my dignity intact. 

Right, I'm off for a ride now, I'll do the write up on Otley when I come back. 

In the meantime, I give you bonkers alley cat racing, as a sort of preview to Otley.

Austerity Weather Part II

When the course manual came through for the Holme Valley Wheelers 2-Day and it described the cause as 'tough', I had NO idea what I was getting myself into.

The first stage was a 30 mile crit on a friday afternoon.

Sounds pleasant doesn't it? A crit, that ought to be flat, and on a friday afternoon, what better way to start the weekend!

Except we had to go up this twat of a hill 11 times:

Many a soul perished on this road

But add in a bit of this:

And you get this:

Yet again I fail to see any difference between this and the above picture

I attacked on the first ascent of this hill because I knew I would have a bloody hard time staying with the whippet thin climbers with their fancy carbon bikes and team tactics. The consequences of that decision went both ways. While we were crawling up the hill at 12mph, the decsent down the other side of the course reached speeds in excess of 55mph, and that was in the rain, and on twisty roads I didnt rather know. 

As it turned out, the bottom part of the hill was excellent for catching aspiring riders, and I got caught. I managed to stay with the bunch for another three laps before I was churned up and spat out like a bone in a fish cake. 

Looking back, I could have dug in a bit more and shattered myself that little bit further, but motivation levels weren't great and I was stressed out by the drive to the race.

"Oo, I know that area like the back of my hand Peter, you dont need your sat nav, I'll get there faster than anyone.''

''But Google says that its faster by going on the motorway"

"Nonsense, I know that area better than anyone"

"Andrew, can you work out sin(56)/cos(23) in your head? No, I didnt think so. Google can so I think they'll know the faster way there"

Obviousy I didnt say that last bit because debating with said person is like trying to get blood out of a stone, and I already felt like banging my head against the bonnet.

A little gruppetto formed and we caught and passed shelled riders with light bikes and lighter legs, and at the end of the night (by this point it was night) I rolled over the line in 19th, 7 minutes down on the winner.  

Stage two was a time-trial, 10 miles over a 'rolling' course.

Finally I said to myself, a bit of peace and quite, a nice soothing time-trial and maybe some time back on those climbers. 

So I warmed up, went to the start were the organiser said I had a full 8 minutes left to go.

"Go warm up on that lane and come back"

I went on that lane and came back, to see the number ahead of me setting off.

"Has my number gone?" 

"Yep"

"When will I go?"

"When I have a space free"

"Will I have a time penalty?"

"Yes"

Oh f**kmonkeys 

So a full ten minutes down I was let go.

'Whats the point in trying when I'm going to have a 10 minute penalty, might as well save myself for the last stage'  I said to myself

That time trial was a strange affair, when I was going fast, I thought;  

'Oo, lets get a placing on this stage, then minus 10minutes to see how I compare'

When I slowed down by a fraction, I gave up completly and though'

'Whats the point'

Then I'd head down a hill and was transformed into someone riding for their sorry life.

This was repeated until the finish. 

As it turned out I didnt get a penalty, and a got a below average time of 26:05 on a hilly and windy course. 20th in that stage. The whippet thin climbers turned out to be hard men.

What?! Another hil?

Stage 3 was a slightly ligher affair in terms if weather, the sun even came out!

However the course was just as hard, with sharp short climbs, rolling hills and long drags. 

I hung in there with the main bunch and I'm proud to say that I didn't get dropped. 20th on this stage.

Well overall I finished 18th, 12 minutes down on the winner, not too bad considering im a fat slob, race a steel bike, had no aero equipment in the TT and had 2 hours sleep because I couldn't get my heart to settle down.

As you can tell, Im full of it. Excuses that is.

Photos courtesy of Flaming Photography

 

Austerity Weather

Since my last post, I've done two races, both in weather like this:

  It rained a bit

In fact, I have an actual photo from the first race:

The resemblance is uncanny

The Ian Mountain Memorial race started with just over fourty people who could be bothered getting out of bed after hearing the sound of torrential rain lashing against the window.

The course was twisty and lumpy, with a 1.3 mile dra that had a luscious tailwind. For some reason, no-one shared my enthusiasm to smash the living daylight's out of it. Only on the rest of the course did they return the favour. And it hurt. Anyway, I break 'rolled' away on the first few laps, on the finishing straight that included two sharp rises and then a cracking headwind.

They established a sizeable advantage, mostly because everyone was watching the two 1st cat riders from Herbalife, and partly because teams were blocking. Half way through a rider bridged. 

Oddly enough, the race was classed as a 1/2/3, with points down to tenth place. This caused some confusion because even the easier 2/3/4 races have points down the fifteenth. Anywho, that leads me onto the excuse of the race. No point sprinting for seventh and getting two points, my main concern was getting to the nice, warmish HQ.