Safe to say I had absolutely no idea what to expect as I lined up at the start line for my very first road race.
I had heard a lot of good things about The League International (TLI) cycling race series and after a few years of hmmming and arrring over entering I finally got round to getting my race entry in for the summer race series.
I cant fault the TLI guys the race format seems to work really well. There are 3 racing categories A, B and C and each series has 6 racing dates, each category rides 4 races and marshals the remainder ensuring every races has enough marshals.
I didn’t exactly have a race plan other than that I intended to stay out of harms way and stick nearer the front of the pack and if a successful break was going to happen, I hoped to be part of it.
It became very clear from the start that no one was going to work for anybody and it was every man or woman for themselves. I learnt a lot doing this race;
If you find yourself at the front of the pack and you’re all riding into a headwind, it doesn’t matter how many times you flick your elbow no one will over take and share the effort.
…….Don’t ride at the very front on the toughest part of the course that’s someone else’s job!
If you relax and let off the pressure to much your instantly at the back of the pack.
Very important.. Be at the front near the corners.
Easier said than done, but the concertina effect into and out of the corners is ridiculous. when you’re at the front, you can take each of the corners at full speed without touching the brakes. The nearer the back you find yourself, you end up coming to a near standstill every time resulting in a mad sprint to regroup.
As the race progressed I slowly became more comfortable riding in close proximity to other riders. Though I do need to improve at staying nearer to the front of the race, too many times I looked behind and all I saw was the race officials car.. ooops
Near to the end of the penultimate lap a small group of quick riders managed to distance themselves from main peloton,so not wanting to miss this opportunity I caught them up but in the process I ended up pulling along a few more riders into the group. Once again finding myself at the front of the group it allowed me to take one of the corners at full speed, which was a lot of fun! I quickly realised that no one else in the group was going to help with the pace making, so I lifted off the pressure and the main group immediately caught us up.
The pace increased notably on the last lap and so before we all knew it we were tussling for position into the last corner. The leading riders pushed hard and the pack quickly split apart, 15 rider back and 800m to the finish line chose my gear and found myself picking each of the riders off and with 400m to go I was at the front. With my head down I had no idea how close the riders where behind and for a split second I thought I might have just got it, but within the last 50m a Sheff Rec rider came off my wheel and took the win. leaving me in second place.
All in all I couldn’t be happier and can’t wait till next week!
Cheers TLI and many thanks to The Bike Tree
Plus thanks to Tim at Kinetic360 for our recent work in the gym.. Olympic lifts FTW!
