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Last night was the second in the Summer long Hillingdon circuit race series. I am going to ride these as training (though see this interesting piece on ‘Racing is not training‘). I need to work on raising my effort and crits should help this. Or at least they should if I made an effort.
The picture, by Ian Why, is from last week’s track training session. I am third in line and letting the gap open.
The 4th category race was pretty even-paced and I should have got to the front and tested myself. As it was I shuffled about nervously following wheels for most of the race. I got to the front once when the grown ups (E123 race) passed us for the second time and the race was temporarily neutralised. Not a bad ride though – I never felt under pressure and finished in the bunch.
It was nice to be back on my race road bike. I stripped the bottom bracket out of it at the beginning of the Winter and have had a rebuild on my ‘to do list’ ever since. Last week’s failure of my training bike meant that I had to get down to the work and in the end it only took 30 minutes. I put a new chain on as well. I hate the Shimano chain lottery: will it break or not? So far, so good.
Race stats: Race distance: 15.30 miles, time: 36:52 (24.9mph average speed). ? out of ?. Top speed: 31.5mph. Fastest mile: 2:14 (26.9mph – mile 15), slowest mile: 2:35 (23.2mph – mile 10). Average HR: 151bpm, maximum HR: 171bpm. Winner: Dan Maslin (Hillingdon Slipstreamers)
Lance Woodman 