You may have gathered that the bulk of my cyclo cross races form part of the London League. However, of the 18 races, including the team championships only 2 of them are actually being held in London (2 rounds at Herne Hill Velodrome and 1 at Hillingdon Cycle Circuit). Fair enough, it wouldn't be very practical to hold a cyclo cross race in Hyde Park, and gaining permission to race in the Royal Parks is not an easy task. But what's the deal with organising events in deepest Kent and Sussex ?? The last 2 rounds we've done were along the Sussex coast - almost 50 miles away - and we'll be back on the coast again next week when we race at Stanmer Park, Brighton. Even the round held at Lydden Hill, nr Dover was actually nearer to France than London !!
Don't get me wrong - some of the venues are quite nice and I still appreciate the effort that organisers put into staging an event. What irks me though is the fact that this is called the "London League" and yet we race nowhere near London. It's not doing what it says on the tin. In fact the South East Regional Championships are being held in.......Fakenham, North Norfolk. My schoolgirl geography tells me that's Eastern England - about a 3 hour drive away. Why the hell are they being held up there ?? Naturally many London based cyclists have voted with their feet (or even their wheels) and won't be making the trip up there.
Ok just ranting 'cos I'm having a bad day, feeling tired and not relishing the whole of yet another Sunday being taken up going to do a race I can only hallucinate about winning !
Still, I'm really happy to have the chance to race in the league, and this year in particular there's been a good group of women getting out regularly - so whatever it's called the London League must be doing something right. At the end of the day who cares what we call it !
Showing posts with label Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. Show all posts
Friday, 30 November 2007
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Hillingdon - a real soggy affair !
Everyone has at least one during the season - it's all part and parcel of the joys of competitive cycling. Given the "summer" that we've had so far many people will have had a few of them. So it was only fair that I get to experience one too - what am I talking about ? A really sopping wet road race.
The type where you've got driving rain whacking you hard in the face as you struggle through a head wind. You try and shelter behind the rider in front of you but you've got the taste of the muck from their rear wheel as you battle to hang in there. So it was my turn today - at the Hillingdon women's road race. Not the best way to end Team Quest race series, but probably a memorable one.
In the old days when this series began, rainy days like this would have scared the riders away. And with the resulting low turn-out it would have been a case of "how many points will I get ?" rather than "let's try and finish in the points". But today, we had the same 20-odd girls turn up to race as usual. Women racing cyclists are definitely getting hardier.
The ride up from my office in Hampton Court, to the Hillingdon Cycle Circuit just west of Southall had been a pretty damp journey. So I wasn't too bothered by the wet.
Of course once the race began, things were a little different. The close proximity of other wheels meant the inevitable faceful of kak. (In fact I could still feel the grit in my teeth an hour after finishing the race.) We were moving that bit faster than when commuting, so it was a slightly riskier situation where cornering and braking were concerned. In fact I found it pretty scary. I really wasn't in a mood to crash !
I suppose on days like these it's quite good for those riders who are seasoned from the rain swept plains of Belgium to come into their own. They can attack hard, much to the chagrin of those, like me, who are more used to riding nearer to the Mediterranean. So the attacks kept coming and coming thanks to the likes of Jayne Kilmartin (Rapha Condor) and Charlotte Blackman (London Dynamo).
I was able to reply for most of the race, but I couldn't handle them attacking on the home strait. The accrued speed I'd picked up going into the sweeping right hand bend that followed made it a lottery as to whether I could stay upright. The fact that the road descended as well made life worse. How do you brake safely in the wet when doing nearly 30mph ?? I've never been that comfortable with that section in the dry. Today I was very nervous.
The race continued on through the evening gloom - only a handful of spectators, prudently bunched under large umbrellas, to shout words of encouragement. There was no talk of any sort between the riders as we cycled across mini streams and splashed through deep puddles. Even though we were riding along as a group, we lived our own personal purgatories to survive the hour long duel. This was a battle against the elements rather than against each other.
Surprisingly, no one crashed. There were some near misses though - in particular during that famous right hand bend a Dulwich Paragon rider swerved and gave everyone the jitters.
I don't know who won - maybe Charlotte from London Dynamo, maybe Jeanette from Team Luciano - it was too dark for me to see much more than 3 meters ahead.
Only at the end of the race did people seem to come alive and talk about the experience. "What a nightmare race", "I've never seen anything like it," "I won't be doing that again in a hurry."
To the menfolk it must have made very interesting viewing seeing all these girls with hair and kit pasted to their skin. A wet T-shirt competition would have been a great way to round off the evening !
Instead, we all just dashed into the shower rooms.
I didn't win the race. I don't even know if I scored any points. But I'd won the battle of the elements. I started the race and I finished it. I wasn't put off by the rain - not the easiest thing to do when it's all too tempting to pack up and go home. Now I know that I will be able to cope with another soggy one in the future. Bring it on - just not for a wee while yet though !
(photos by John Mullineaux)
The type where you've got driving rain whacking you hard in the face as you struggle through a head wind. You try and shelter behind the rider in front of you but you've got the taste of the muck from their rear wheel as you battle to hang in there. So it was my turn today - at the Hillingdon women's road race. Not the best way to end Team Quest race series, but probably a memorable one.
In the old days when this series began, rainy days like this would have scared the riders away. And with the resulting low turn-out it would have been a case of "how many points will I get ?" rather than "let's try and finish in the points". But today, we had the same 20-odd girls turn up to race as usual. Women racing cyclists are definitely getting hardier.
The ride up from my office in Hampton Court, to the Hillingdon Cycle Circuit just west of Southall had been a pretty damp journey. So I wasn't too bothered by the wet.
Of course once the race began, things were a little different. The close proximity of other wheels meant the inevitable faceful of kak. (In fact I could still feel the grit in my teeth an hour after finishing the race.) We were moving that bit faster than when commuting, so it was a slightly riskier situation where cornering and braking were concerned. In fact I found it pretty scary. I really wasn't in a mood to crash !
I suppose on days like these it's quite good for those riders who are seasoned from the rain swept plains of Belgium to come into their own. They can attack hard, much to the chagrin of those, like me, who are more used to riding nearer to the Mediterranean. So the attacks kept coming and coming thanks to the likes of Jayne Kilmartin (Rapha Condor) and Charlotte Blackman (London Dynamo).
I was able to reply for most of the race, but I couldn't handle them attacking on the home strait. The accrued speed I'd picked up going into the sweeping right hand bend that followed made it a lottery as to whether I could stay upright. The fact that the road descended as well made life worse. How do you brake safely in the wet when doing nearly 30mph ?? I've never been that comfortable with that section in the dry. Today I was very nervous.
The race continued on through the evening gloom - only a handful of spectators, prudently bunched under large umbrellas, to shout words of encouragement. There was no talk of any sort between the riders as we cycled across mini streams and splashed through deep puddles. Even though we were riding along as a group, we lived our own personal purgatories to survive the hour long duel. This was a battle against the elements rather than against each other.
Surprisingly, no one crashed. There were some near misses though - in particular during that famous right hand bend a Dulwich Paragon rider swerved and gave everyone the jitters.
I don't know who won - maybe Charlotte from London Dynamo, maybe Jeanette from Team Luciano - it was too dark for me to see much more than 3 meters ahead.
Only at the end of the race did people seem to come alive and talk about the experience. "What a nightmare race", "I've never seen anything like it," "I won't be doing that again in a hurry."
To the menfolk it must have made very interesting viewing seeing all these girls with hair and kit pasted to their skin. A wet T-shirt competition would have been a great way to round off the evening !
Instead, we all just dashed into the shower rooms.
I didn't win the race. I don't even know if I scored any points. But I'd won the battle of the elements. I started the race and I finished it. I wasn't put off by the rain - not the easiest thing to do when it's all too tempting to pack up and go home. Now I know that I will be able to cope with another soggy one in the future. Bring it on - just not for a wee while yet though !
(photos by John Mullineaux)
Monday, 6 August 2007
Found my wheels again !
I'm happy to say I'm now back in the swing of things after my Italian adventure. I think it was the fact that the weather had been so hot over there, that it took it out of me. Once back in ol' blighty I needed to give myself a little break before getting back to the races. It wasn't such a long break - just a couple of weeks, and I was still commuting and doing low level training. I just wasn't in the mood to beat myself up at the races. Also, from what my sports masseur said, it was a good job I didn't race as my muscles were pretty shot.
I did my first bit of racing last Monday - at Herne Hill track - got slaughtered in every race. The losing margin was less, so that was still encouraging ! Also being the only female there made it difficult to judge exactly where I was compared with my peers.
Wednesday was the women's race at Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. That was a real race - frequent attacks being made, as the Agisko Viner girls were dead set on setting up one of their members for the win. It made me feel good that I was able to stay with the bunch during the various assaults being made.
I still need to work on my finish though. I sprinted for the line, but not fast enough - so only managed 13th place - still, I beat some quality riders and earned a couple of points.
We've only got one more race in this series to go, so I'm going to give it my all in the last one.
I didn't race at the weekend - just did track cycling training at Herne Hill again on Saturday, plus a hilly 60 miles around Kent with Stan.
So here we are again - a new week, and I've got track racing to look forward to tonight, plus Crystal Palace circuit racing tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be interesting. Even though it's my local course I hardly race there. It usually takes me 4 months to pluck up the courage to race on this technically scary circuit. No doubt I will be dropped, as is the case for most riders starting out on this course. I just need to see if I can survive 2 laps in the bunch - believe me, that will be an achievement !
I did my first bit of racing last Monday - at Herne Hill track - got slaughtered in every race. The losing margin was less, so that was still encouraging ! Also being the only female there made it difficult to judge exactly where I was compared with my peers.
Wednesday was the women's race at Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. That was a real race - frequent attacks being made, as the Agisko Viner girls were dead set on setting up one of their members for the win. It made me feel good that I was able to stay with the bunch during the various assaults being made.
I still need to work on my finish though. I sprinted for the line, but not fast enough - so only managed 13th place - still, I beat some quality riders and earned a couple of points.
We've only got one more race in this series to go, so I'm going to give it my all in the last one.
I didn't race at the weekend - just did track cycling training at Herne Hill again on Saturday, plus a hilly 60 miles around Kent with Stan.
So here we are again - a new week, and I've got track racing to look forward to tonight, plus Crystal Palace circuit racing tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be interesting. Even though it's my local course I hardly race there. It usually takes me 4 months to pluck up the courage to race on this technically scary circuit. No doubt I will be dropped, as is the case for most riders starting out on this course. I just need to see if I can survive 2 laps in the bunch - believe me, that will be an achievement !
Thursday, 5 July 2007
Race organisers and Women's Cycling !
Don't get me wrong - I enjoy competitive cycling and the women's racing scene, but we sometimes get a raw deal.
In the old days when there were hardly any women road racing we had to race with the 4th category men. Ok if you're new to riding at speed, but a 2nd or 3rd category woman deserves to race with more skilled riders rather than being left at the mercy of certain wobblers who have never ridden in a bunch before and potentially being brought down !
Also, for a long time a woman couldn't score British Cycling points in a men's race, even if she finished in a points scoring position.
But now that's changed, and a woman is free to race with men if she has the same category licence (or higher) than the men she races with. And she can score points too.
In any case, there are so many more women's races taking place nowadays so we can do a decent season without having to do any racing with the men !
And I for one am looking forward to doing the women's Tour de France Support race in Hyde Park this Sunday.
But there are still issues. Take the women's race I did yesterday at Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. This race runs concurrently with the male vets race, though their race is longer. The commissaire explains to us that these are two separate events and if we are caught by the men's race our peloton should slow down to allow them to pass.
That's fair enough, but what happens if the men overtake our peloton and then slow down ? Bear in mind that this is a 40 man peloton taking up the whole track. And what's more, what are we supposed to do once they've slowed down and we are in the process of chasing the Evans RT girl who's gone on a breakaway ? Well that was the situation we were faced with.
The women at the front shouted to the men to get a move on, so that we could get on with our race, but they wouldn't budge. Finally out of frustration the woman at the front accelerated the pace, meaning that we ended up racing as one big peloton with the vets. (It was great to be in a big peloton but that wasn't the point of the exercise !).
Eventually the commissaire stopped our race. The women were made to wait for a minute, and then the girl who had done the breakaway was aloud to set off with a 20second lead on the main bunch. We were particularly aggrieved by this because part of the reason she'd accumulated that time on us was because she'd been ahead of the vets peloton and we did not have right of way to chase her down ! We eventually got started, and worked furiously together to catch her. The race was eventually won by a woman from Agiskoviner - albeit after our sprint was delayed when the vets caught us again in the closing stages and we had to slow down. We all agreed that it had been the vets who were at fault and the women were being treated unfairly.
Also recently there have been problems with results. For example, the Brentwood Crits. The national series women's race I did at Brentwood had points awarded to riders down to 20th spot. There were 25 women in the race, so results should have been published down to 20th place, if not 25th. Instead, we have only seen results down to 16th place.
British Cycling can't comment on the matter as they say it is the race commissaire on the day who has the final say. We have had no explanation from the organisers despite having contacted them. So certain riders who may have been owed points (myself included) have been awarded nothing. The men's equivalent race that took place that day had results published down to 30th place, even though only the top 20 riders were awarded British Cycling points. That's not good form.
Organisers bemoan the fact that they don't have as many women racing as they would like at their events. Organisers please note that the work to attract women riders should be on-going. If we are turning out regularly to race we want women's cycle racing to be recognised and treated with respect. That's the best thing you can do to attract and keep the riders. Ok, rant over !
In the old days when there were hardly any women road racing we had to race with the 4th category men. Ok if you're new to riding at speed, but a 2nd or 3rd category woman deserves to race with more skilled riders rather than being left at the mercy of certain wobblers who have never ridden in a bunch before and potentially being brought down !
Also, for a long time a woman couldn't score British Cycling points in a men's race, even if she finished in a points scoring position.
But now that's changed, and a woman is free to race with men if she has the same category licence (or higher) than the men she races with. And she can score points too.
In any case, there are so many more women's races taking place nowadays so we can do a decent season without having to do any racing with the men !
And I for one am looking forward to doing the women's Tour de France Support race in Hyde Park this Sunday.
But there are still issues. Take the women's race I did yesterday at Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. This race runs concurrently with the male vets race, though their race is longer. The commissaire explains to us that these are two separate events and if we are caught by the men's race our peloton should slow down to allow them to pass.
That's fair enough, but what happens if the men overtake our peloton and then slow down ? Bear in mind that this is a 40 man peloton taking up the whole track. And what's more, what are we supposed to do once they've slowed down and we are in the process of chasing the Evans RT girl who's gone on a breakaway ? Well that was the situation we were faced with.
The women at the front shouted to the men to get a move on, so that we could get on with our race, but they wouldn't budge. Finally out of frustration the woman at the front accelerated the pace, meaning that we ended up racing as one big peloton with the vets. (It was great to be in a big peloton but that wasn't the point of the exercise !).
Eventually the commissaire stopped our race. The women were made to wait for a minute, and then the girl who had done the breakaway was aloud to set off with a 20second lead on the main bunch. We were particularly aggrieved by this because part of the reason she'd accumulated that time on us was because she'd been ahead of the vets peloton and we did not have right of way to chase her down ! We eventually got started, and worked furiously together to catch her. The race was eventually won by a woman from Agiskoviner - albeit after our sprint was delayed when the vets caught us again in the closing stages and we had to slow down. We all agreed that it had been the vets who were at fault and the women were being treated unfairly.
Also recently there have been problems with results. For example, the Brentwood Crits. The national series women's race I did at Brentwood had points awarded to riders down to 20th spot. There were 25 women in the race, so results should have been published down to 20th place, if not 25th. Instead, we have only seen results down to 16th place.
British Cycling can't comment on the matter as they say it is the race commissaire on the day who has the final say. We have had no explanation from the organisers despite having contacted them. So certain riders who may have been owed points (myself included) have been awarded nothing. The men's equivalent race that took place that day had results published down to 30th place, even though only the top 20 riders were awarded British Cycling points. That's not good form.
Organisers bemoan the fact that they don't have as many women racing as they would like at their events. Organisers please note that the work to attract women riders should be on-going. If we are turning out regularly to race we want women's cycle racing to be recognised and treated with respect. That's the best thing you can do to attract and keep the riders. Ok, rant over !
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Rain, Rain Go Away !! Or I'm off to the Azores !
The wet stuff is really beginning to be a pain. I understand that we need a bit of rain, to keep things ticking over, and hopefully to avoid a hose-pipe ban. But really it's getting beyond a joke now. I keep on missing track sessions and track meets. My local criterium race at Crystal Palace has been cancelled a few times given how technical the course is, and how dangerous it gets in the wet. They even had to cancel the national road race champs in Beverley (North Yorks) due to flooding in the north of England.
In fact part of my family lives up there. Luckily their house wasn't flooded, but the neighbours across the street were affected. After a certain point the drains become overfilled and the water just rises upwards through people's homes. So imagine all the crap that you flush away or pour down the plughole basically coming back up into your home. Ugh, recycling in the extreme !! So the council now have a mammoth job clearing the place up and getting rid of the awful stench.
Apparenty we have just had the wettest June in the UK ever. I know that because I have spent more time on my turbo trainer than any other June I can remember ! For God Sake, this is meant to be summer. All the good stuff happens now. Barbecues, summer parties and concerts, cycling in the sun. Was our summer those couple of weeks in April ? It seems like it. Forecasters say the rain will continue at least into mid-July, as currently there's an area of high pressure stuck over the Portuguese island of the Azores. While they're basking in soaring temperatures, we've got this mass of low pressure hanging above us causing storms on an almost biblical scale.
So we will have more wet races to look forward to - maybe I should fit my racing bike with mud guards !
We can only keep our fingers crossed that there's a 3 hour window this Saturday for the Tour de France prologue when the riders can at least have a dry and safe ride.
Stanley (aka Him Indoors) is in Wales mountain biking this week. I think his holiday's gonna be a big wet one.
As I look out of my window and see yet another shower beginning I can say that Crystal Palace will be cancelled again this evening. Another hot date with my turbo trainer beckons ! I will be at Hillingdon cycle circuit tomorrow though, come rain or shine. Naturally, I prefer shine.
Friday, 22 June 2007
Happiness is.......Hillingdon !
So I rolled into Hillingdon Cycle Circuit the day before yesterday for the women's fortnightly Team Quest race. These 40km criterium races had quite humble beginnings when they started in 2003. They would be held on a Friday evening - just when elite racers were saving their energy for the weekend races, when other racers were recovering from the rigours of their week - or quite simply when us mortals were savouring our well earned pint ! If 10 women turned out to race it was considered a record. Generally the numbers would be around 6 or 7.
With the racing now being on Wednesday evenings and with women's racing have developed significantly in the last couple of years, numbers racing have swollen, and the quality of the racing is definitely higher. Generally the women who race there are the regulars of the racing scene at national as well as local level.
At the sign on desk I didn't feel on top of the world. I had an even bigger heartsink feeling as I saw the steady stream of riders signing in - all stronger than me !
The rainy weather forecast had kept the number of women down to 18. As British Cycling points were available down to 15th place I figured that if I could finish no worse than 4th last I’d get something. But from the start sheet I couldn’t find 3 women that would definitely be slower than me ! They were mainly seasoned racers there – Louise Mahe (Cycles Dauphin), Jeanette Caldicott (Team Luciano) a few Agisko Viner women, Nikki Wheeler (Team Velocity). I only really stood a chance against Liz Rice (London Phoenix) who I’ve beaten in the past, and possibly Jayne Wadsworth (De Laune) who is a good cyclosportive rider, but was brand new to road racing.
When the race started I was quickly dropped after I failed to get into my cleats quick enough. I ended up working with Liz Rice and a girl who I didn’t recognise
(wearing No.3). We worked hard together, sharing the work on a very windy back strait. Then Liz got dropped. Suddenly out of the blue Jayne Wadsworth caught us. She’d also been dropped at the start, but had clung onto the concurrently running male vets race to get back up to us. We then worked together as a new group of 3. As we went along No.3 was shouting to us to dig in, and was giving encouragement.
We managed to catch a couple more women who’d been dropped off the main group – Jo Foster (Twickenham CC) and a girl from Welwyn Wheelers, so our group grew to 5. We all shared the work on the windy bits. About 2 thirds of the way through Jo went off the front. We thought she was chasing down the vets who had just passed us. None of us went with her because we believed she would soon be on her own again in the wind and we’d catch her. In fact, the group just ahead of us was not the vets race but the main bunch in our race ! A lap later the remaining 4 of us got back into the main bunch. So basically, the 5 of us had been riding faster than the 12 woman group ahead !!
Because it was so windy along the back strait, no-one in the main group had wanted to do any work. They couldn’t get organised at all. At times the pace was really pedestrian – which was good for me as it gave me time to recover. Even when we had 5 laps to go, still no one was willing to do anything. Half hearted attempts to break were made but it came to nothing.
Along the back strait during the final lap I could really sense the lull before the storm – Louise Mahe was eyeing Jeanette Caldicott, who was looking at Nikki Wheeler. Jane Kilmartin (Rapha-Condor) was in turn watching over the 3 of the women. Everyone was waiting to see who would go first. Then Louise kicked straight after the last bend and it all kicked off. So it all came down to doing a long one from the bottom bend out of the saddle all the way to the finish line. I had been on the outside (where I felt safer) and used my novice track rider skills to get on the drops and follow Nikki Wheeler as far and as fast I could chase her, my lungs bursting, and breathing through my ears.
It was a fast finish for us all. For my efforts I gained 8th place. I was really pleased because I’d been thinking 15th would be an achievement. I must have beaten some fast girls in the process too. I was so happy to have finished in the top 10 out of a quality field, so hadn't paid attention to who won. I believe it was Emma Patterson (AgiskoViner).
I am really glad to have raced in the small group with No.3 and Jayne Wadsworth. No. 3 had really encouraged us to keep going. It had been hard for us, but we all chipped in and had shared the work to get back in the race. Unfortunately No. 3 got cramp so was unable to contest the sprint. Jayne didn’t contest the sprint because she doesn’t do sprinting ! She was happy with the race though. Jo from Twickenham finished in seventh place, and she seemed pleased with her race too.
Thanks to this Hillingdon race I am now half way to gaining my 2nd category licence. That makes me happy. Hopefully I will have more races like this !
With the racing now being on Wednesday evenings and with women's racing have developed significantly in the last couple of years, numbers racing have swollen, and the quality of the racing is definitely higher. Generally the women who race there are the regulars of the racing scene at national as well as local level.
At the sign on desk I didn't feel on top of the world. I had an even bigger heartsink feeling as I saw the steady stream of riders signing in - all stronger than me !
The rainy weather forecast had kept the number of women down to 18. As British Cycling points were available down to 15th place I figured that if I could finish no worse than 4th last I’d get something. But from the start sheet I couldn’t find 3 women that would definitely be slower than me ! They were mainly seasoned racers there – Louise Mahe (Cycles Dauphin), Jeanette Caldicott (Team Luciano) a few Agisko Viner women, Nikki Wheeler (Team Velocity). I only really stood a chance against Liz Rice (London Phoenix) who I’ve beaten in the past, and possibly Jayne Wadsworth (De Laune) who is a good cyclosportive rider, but was brand new to road racing.
When the race started I was quickly dropped after I failed to get into my cleats quick enough. I ended up working with Liz Rice and a girl who I didn’t recognise
(wearing No.3). We worked hard together, sharing the work on a very windy back strait. Then Liz got dropped. Suddenly out of the blue Jayne Wadsworth caught us. She’d also been dropped at the start, but had clung onto the concurrently running male vets race to get back up to us. We then worked together as a new group of 3. As we went along No.3 was shouting to us to dig in, and was giving encouragement.
We managed to catch a couple more women who’d been dropped off the main group – Jo Foster (Twickenham CC) and a girl from Welwyn Wheelers, so our group grew to 5. We all shared the work on the windy bits. About 2 thirds of the way through Jo went off the front. We thought she was chasing down the vets who had just passed us. None of us went with her because we believed she would soon be on her own again in the wind and we’d catch her. In fact, the group just ahead of us was not the vets race but the main bunch in our race ! A lap later the remaining 4 of us got back into the main bunch. So basically, the 5 of us had been riding faster than the 12 woman group ahead !!
Because it was so windy along the back strait, no-one in the main group had wanted to do any work. They couldn’t get organised at all. At times the pace was really pedestrian – which was good for me as it gave me time to recover. Even when we had 5 laps to go, still no one was willing to do anything. Half hearted attempts to break were made but it came to nothing.
Along the back strait during the final lap I could really sense the lull before the storm – Louise Mahe was eyeing Jeanette Caldicott, who was looking at Nikki Wheeler. Jane Kilmartin (Rapha-Condor) was in turn watching over the 3 of the women. Everyone was waiting to see who would go first. Then Louise kicked straight after the last bend and it all kicked off. So it all came down to doing a long one from the bottom bend out of the saddle all the way to the finish line. I had been on the outside (where I felt safer) and used my novice track rider skills to get on the drops and follow Nikki Wheeler as far and as fast I could chase her, my lungs bursting, and breathing through my ears.
It was a fast finish for us all. For my efforts I gained 8th place. I was really pleased because I’d been thinking 15th would be an achievement. I must have beaten some fast girls in the process too. I was so happy to have finished in the top 10 out of a quality field, so hadn't paid attention to who won. I believe it was Emma Patterson (AgiskoViner).
I am really glad to have raced in the small group with No.3 and Jayne Wadsworth. No. 3 had really encouraged us to keep going. It had been hard for us, but we all chipped in and had shared the work to get back in the race. Unfortunately No. 3 got cramp so was unable to contest the sprint. Jayne didn’t contest the sprint because she doesn’t do sprinting ! She was happy with the race though. Jo from Twickenham finished in seventh place, and she seemed pleased with her race too.
Thanks to this Hillingdon race I am now half way to gaining my 2nd category licence. That makes me happy. Hopefully I will have more races like this !
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