Weekend of 22/23^rd February 2014

Sunday – Recce ride for the first SEWTT’S time trial at Bletchingley

                   This year there’s been a great new TT series in the South East created for women riders of all abilities. I haven’t done many TT’s in my cycling life so far, only ones attached to road races. So I have decided to enter the series this year to help improve my time trialling as I know it’s probably my biggest weakness at the moment and I want to change this. Jasmijn, who’s riding in the series, organised a ride today for any women who wanted to recce the first TT circuit, riding there and back from Kingston. So I decided to go on the ride today, it was really great to be able to understand the circuit better so that I know better how to pace myself in the real event.

                   The 3 of us set off early from Kingston at 8:30, but Josephine towards the beginning of the ride decided to ride back home so it was just me and Jasmijn for the majority of the ride.  And a very hilly ride it was as well!! Over 1,200m elevation in a 55 mile ride, so lots of steep hills we had to contend with on the ride today. Not to mention a strong crosswind which seemed determined to knock us off our bikes! Apart from this I did have a fun time on the ride as well, at one point we were standing at a major junction at some traffic lights, waiting for the lights to change. This seemed to take forever so we assumed that the traffic lights must have been sensitive to cars waiting there and there were no cars waiting with us. Eventually we realized why the lights still hadn’t changed, we were looking at the wrong lights!! The lights that we were actually supposed to be looking at were now green so we could set off laughing about our silly mistake!

                  The TT course itself was rather an interesting circuit, very up and down. A difficult start to the course, firstly having to join the main road and then a long drag which was deceivingly tough. Then after this currently there are some temporary traffic lights before a sharp left turn, hopefully those traffic lights will be removed before the TT, otherwise it’ll be a lot down to luck if you get stopped by the lights! This is then followed by a good descent, not too many sharp corners so this is definitely a section you can really push on the pedals. The next part of the course is my favourite, nice smooth generally flat roads. However then the horrible part of the circuit comes, 3 steep hills, which you’ll definitely need a nice easy gear and some energy left in the tank to not lose too much time on this section. Overall, it’s certainly going to be a difficult circuit to contend with but it’s certainly helped recceing the circuit. I’ll be doing the TT on 23^rd March.

                   I was certainly tired by the end of this ride, after finding going up some of the hills particularly tricky. This was partly because I need to sort out the gearing on my bike as I need a easier gear because when I moved up to junior gearing this year I lost a few of my easier gears which this ride has taught me I need. Also a tough ride considering I’m just recovering from being ill (which was why I didn’t do anything on my bike last weekend) and on the ride I didn’t feel back to full health and fitness.

Weekend of 8^th/ 9^th February 2014

Saturday 8^th- last Men’s e/1/2/3 race at Hillingdon

Extremely tough weather conditions for the last race in the series. The strong gusty winds were a big element in this race, causing very difficult racing conditions. In fact, in the 4^th cat men’s race before ours, there were 4 crashes because of it, which was very high considering there had been virtually no other crashes in the rest of the series.

 

Start line for the e/1/2/3 men's race - I'm in the centre

 

Our race started off what seemed to me faster than usual, and they usually start off very fast!! For the first few laps I was hanging on in the bunch but exerting way too much energy to be able to hold this for very long. As soon as I lost the wheel in front it seemed like I rocketed off the back of the group, within seconds the main group had made quite a lot of distance on me. Despite this, I was pleased as I was the last of the 3 women in the race (the other 2 racing for the new team SPEG – Project 51) to drop off the group. I then rode in a small group riding at a decent pace as it took the main group quite a while to lap us. When the main group came past I joined the group; the commisaires of this race seem to allow us women to re-join the main group as they understand that it is tough for us and we use the races mainly for training. I managed to then stick with the bunch for the rest of the race, this was very challenging and by the end of the race my legs were really heavy and I was glad the race was over as I was extremely tired.  

                                  Today’s race was certainly very tough and I was pleased to finish 20^th (1st woman) out of a field of over 40, especially as so many of the men actually abandoned the race because of the tough conditions.

 

Sunday 9^th – 95 mile road ride

                   When one sets out to do the longest ride they have so far in their lives, one should start off the ride slowly so that they can definitely last the whole ride, well not me…. I had planned to do a 60 mile club run with Thames Velo Club which started at 10am, and ride there and back which was about 18 miles each way, meeting Anastasia to ride the last 10 miles together there and back. The big problem was that I set off late to get to Anastasia’s house in the first place and I didn’t accommodate enough time anyway for having a strong head wind the whole way and mostly uphill to get to the start of the club run. In an ideal situation I would have used the ride as a good warm up, what I ended up doing was having to really push on the pedals, not warmed up, to make sure I got there on time, which took a lot out of my legs.

               The actual club run with Thames Velo Club was really good, it was the first time I have been on a ride with them, having decided to join them on their ride today as I knew that Anastasia was going and I wanted to get a bigger ride in to improve my endurance. The strong winds made the ride even tougher, but overall I enjoyed the route with not too many nasty hills apart from the one right at the end. There was one hiccup in the ride… the flooded road!!! It would have been impossible to ride on this particular road so we rode on the pavement, which still had quite deep water. The worst bit though was when riding on this pavement we came across some driveways so the pavement lowered and we all got absolutely soaked! My shoes were absolutely waterlogged, thankfully they dried quite quickly (one bonus of riding with bonts on is they don’t have much fabric and padding so the water dries quicker!:)) When I finished the club run I rode back to Anastasia’s house, before then riding back home at a easy pace to warm down. It was much nicer on the way back considering I had a nice tail wind and it being mainly downhill.

             A great day being able to knuckle down and get lots of good miles in, no doubt I was absolutely tired by the end and glad to be off the bike, after 6 hours being on the bike!!

Weekend of 1^st/2^nd February 2014

Saturday- Men’s e/1/2/3 race at Hillingdon

This weekend I was really looking forward to my first race in my new race kit! I’d entered for the e/1/2/3 men’s race at my local Hillingdon circuit, which was fully booked and promised to be a really fast pace race as usual. Whilst browsing Facebook earlier that Saturday morning, I came across a picture which I first presumed was a river. After taking a double take I realised that it was not a river but in fact a photo of part of the Hillingdon circuit! Despite knowing that the circuit was flooded we set off to the race, hoping that the flood water had been cleared. The race organisers had done an amazing job and the majority of water was cleared, so the circuit was rideable and the race was on. The race started off blisteringly fast with an attack in the first 100m. Due to the fast nature of the first few laps, my target is always just hold on until the race settles down. With such a big field it was important to maintain a good position within the group which I managed to do.

The Flooded circuit - thanks to Sam Grant for the photo

 All in all, the race was going rather well for me until an incident with 5 laps to go. Going round one of the tight corners I was holding my line when somebody’s front wheel collided with my back wheel for a few seconds with such force I was lucky to not come off my bike. This meant though that I had to stop that lap for my Dad to sort out my bike and then I could re-join the race. In my quick pit stop we didn’t realize that my hangar had completely been bent and therefore the last few laps of the race were extremely difficult for me as my gears were malfunctioning. I hung in though but I was unable to be competitive in the sprint. Overall a good training race and hopefully next time I’ll be able to do well in the sprint as I won’t have any mechanical problems.

After the collision- Thanks to British Cycle Sport for the photo

Sunday – Road Ride





It was a lovely blue sky sunny day and it promised to be a great day for a good long training ride. If only the luck on our ride was as good luck as the weather was. Me and my friend Sam, set off before 9, the air still very nippy, planning to fit in a good 60 mile ride. The ride started off really well, unsurprisingly as the sun was really shining down on us I braved and took off my leg warmers. Which for the next couple of miles seemed like a really good idea, until… we met some rather long flooded sections of road! Riding through this wasn’t very fun, especially with bare legs, I began to get rather cold. However, the next few hills seemed to fix that problem, really pushing and driving up the hills; for practise as there are a number of the hilly circuits in the National Women’s road series. At the top of one of the hills there was a amazing view, it was quite different from usual though as you couldn’t see the majority of the fields as they were flooded. We continued on our ride, but our ride came abruptly to an end, at probably one of the worst points in the ride, just coming up to a busy junction with several cars just behind us. Sam’s gear hangar snapped completely off, meaning that there was no way that we were going to be able to fix it and continue on our ride. So basically we were stuck at quite a busy junction, on the side sitting on a muddy verge 30 miles from home! I called my Dad up so that he could come and pick us up, however we had an hour to wait until he arrived. In that time we completely froze, I immediately put my leg warmers back on but unfortunately that didn’t help much. I then went for a little ride around the area to see if there was a local café to stay in whilst we waited, unfortunately not. So we were stuck on our muddy verge. However one thing that was really nice was the number of cyclists that stopped by and asked if we needed any help!! J Eventually my dad arrived to pick us up and I could go home and warm up in a nice hot bath, which I most certainly needed.

Team Launch 25-26^th January

Saturday

I was really excited for this weekend as I was going to have my Team Launch with my new team for the 2014/2015 season, Bike Pure/LeMond/Aspire Velotech. It was an early start on the Saturday morning as we all had to travel from various areas across the country to Bike Science in Bristol where we were going to stay the whole day, each in turn having our bike fit with Andy. I was the first to arrive, ready to start my bike fit at 9!! Before that though, it was great to meet our Team Manager, Karl Nielsen, making a grand entrance into the car park in his bright white Bike Pure car!! One by one, all of us girls arrived and it was great to meet and catch up with all of my team mates for the next 2 seasons.
 

Andy did a great job in my bike fit, thank you!! It was good to know that my position on my bike was good and he was extremely helpful in giving bits of very useful advice. After my bike fit finished I could now relax for the day, just chatting and having a laugh with the other girls, whilst we took turns having our bike fits.
 

For lunch, all of us girls were given instructions to meet in the cutest cycling café across the road, to meet up with our parents who’d left to go to the café earlier. So we all set of in our lycra kit, most of us with bare legs as well, strolling through Bristol and somehow we got completely lost, despite the fact that the café was supposedly just across the road. Eventually we got back on track and entered the cutest cycling themed café I’ve ever seen. There were wheels hanging from the ceilings, it was so individualised and we all loved it!! We then had a bite to eat, before shortly returning back to base for today, Bike Science.
 

A lady from Women’s Cycling Magazine came along and we all had individual interviews with her, which will be published in the next edition of the magazine so look out for that!! I’ve never had to do an interview before so it was a great new experience for me!!

We then all headed outside for a quick photoshoot in front of Bike Science. We honestly could not have picked a better moment to head outside, as soon as we went out the wind picked up and it started to rain heavily L We were all absolutely freezing and as soon as the pictures were taken we dashed back inside into the warm and dry. This was the conclusion to our day at Bike Science, we changed out of our kit and headed to our Premier Inn rooms in Newport, Wales.

We all met downstairs in the restaurant for a team meeting about the season ahead. We were all very excited about this to find out more about the ins and outs of the team. It was really great as we were able to openly discuss our plans for which races we’re going to enter, what we expected from the team, our concerns etc. It was great and I found the meeting really helpful as we managed to sort out lots of important things.
 

It was getting rather late now, and so it was dinner time!! We all had a lovely meal as a team, which was a great conclusion to the day and ready for some sleep!!

Sunday

We had another early start but I was particularly excited for the day ahead, especially for our photoshoot with Huw Fairclough first thing in the hotel. We all had some individual shots taken and then some team shots. All of these were very sensible and professional looking photos. As it was raining outside, we had time to have some more “fun” shots of us all which, which was a great laugh.

The rain didn’t look like it was going to stop so we had to continue onto our next destination which was the amazing looking Celtic Manor. As soon as we went inside there was a Ferrari parked inside on building on the left. Of course we did not miss a photo opportunity as great as this!

 

Next we went to a more rural area for a short bike ride, to take some moving shots of us on our bikes. Despite the weather, and getting absolutely soaked and muddy, this was great fun! Following on from this we went on a 35 mile road ride in hilly Wales, finishing at the Premier inn, where we all rushed inside to have a shower!

And our amazing team launch weekend came to a close and we all had to say goodbye. I had such a fun weekend and I can’t wait until we next all meet up!

Thanks to Karl, our Team Manager, for organising such a great weekend, and also thanks to all our sponsors for their support.