The secret diary of an apprentice cycle racer

Oh my God, that’s Sean Yates!

Sean Yates.  Yep, the Sean Yates.  And I’m on his bloody wheel in the Dunsfold 4ths.

At the stroke of a pedal my sporting life scaled a peak it will never reach again.  And if that sounds overly melodramatic to you well tough, frankly.  For one night only I got to race with Sean Yates and, even three days later, I’m still on a high.  If I must make a football comparison it’s like turning up for your Sunday pub team’s latest fixture and finding Gazza among your opponents.

Why so significant to me?  Well, younger readers who’ve grown up on a diet of Cavendish, Wiggins, Thomas, Millar and the modern wave of British cycling stars probably have only the murkiest idea of the era I started watching bike racing in, when we Brits were pretty much a laughing stock as a road cycling nation; a position epitomised by the legendarily crap attempt on the Tour de France by ANC Halfords back in 1987.

A handful of names generally stifled the mirth whenever they were uttered.  One of them was Sean Yates.  In his day an absolute animal of a rider, he famously put Lance in his place when he first joined Motorola (though the two became firm friends and have remained so ever since), while on the road he wore the yellow jersey and won a stage in the Tour, was British Champion and always rode hard with precious little luck in the daddy of all one-dayers, Paris-Roubaix.  He’s a genuine, gold-plated hero of mine and I make no bones about that.

Even now, at 52 years of age (the race was actually on his birthday), he was worlds apart from the rest of the 4^th Cats toiling around Dunsfold, and not just because he was on a super-bling Team Sky Pinarello with deep section wheels that hummed with a sound all of their own.  No, it was the cadence that really gave his pedigree away – more than half as fast again as anybody else riding and just the smoothest thing you’ve ever seen.  Pure poetry in motion.

A legend in our midst… Sean Yates (far right) with his not-so-secret admirer not far behind…

I know all this because I spent most of the race behind him, just watching.  Of course the Great Man wasn’t turning out in some vain attempt to rise back up through the amateur cycling ranks; he was there for one reason only: to look after his 18 year-old boy Liam as the lad continued his own fledgling racing career.  Until the climax of the race it wasn’t anything showy, just the odd word of advice and one enormous pull at the front that immediately dashed a late breakaway which briefly threatened to go the distance.

Once we entered the final straight, however, he simply blew everyone away in the guise of lead-out man, dropping Liam off for a facile win by several bike lengths.  If the boy Yates proves to have a career anything like as successful as dad’s I will always be able to say I was present for his first senior victory.

The bunch rolls along – I’m tucked in quite nicely.

All of this comprehensively overshadowed what was a hugely encouraging performance from Yours Truly.  Having stayed out of trouble throughout the fairly pedestrian but pretty sketchy race, I sorted my final bend position out so I was much better placed to stay out of the wind than the previous week.  A big young chap from the Blazing Saddles club was a good wheel to get on, although my gentlemanly offer to my team-mate Simon to slot in right behind him proved a slightly unfortunate decision, since Simon faded almost immediately afterwards and Blazing Saddles was gone by the time I’d got round him (B Saddles ended up 5^th as it happens).

So there was nothing for it but to crouch down on the drops and just pedal like my life depended on it for the final couple of hundred metres.  Even though my heart felt as though it was about to burst from my chest like some out-take from Alien (I set a new all-time heart rate record of 208bpm while sprinting) I just went for it hammer and tongs and did not stop until I’d crossed the line.

A quick headcount of the finishers in front of me indicated 10^th place, which was confirmed by the organiser Glyn upon review of his finish-line film.

So I got a BC point, finishing ahead of 41 out of the 51 starters, and continuing the progress I felt I made in the veterans’ race two days earlier.  It’s just one point, of course, but I had to wait until the very last Dunsfold race to get off the mark last season, so I reckon I’m well ahead of the game.

More importantly, I’m in the form of my life just now, thanks to my two months of following the coaching plans of Alex Welburn and then the fantastic team training camp in Majorca.  My legs feel strong, I’ve dropped another kilo or so and I find I can hold some pretty high speeds for some pretty decent distances compared with days gone by.

The challenge will be to hold my form and get some bigger points payoffs once a few more of the Liam Yates’s of this world have departed and the 4^th Cat playing field is thus levelled further.  There’s still a lot of racing to be done, especially during the next five weeks before my summer holiday kills my racing fitness stone dead and I have to start all over again…

But that’s to worry about in the future.  In the present, I’m back at Dunsfold this week for another crack at the vets’ race.  Onwards and upwards!

I’ve seen my future – many would say my present – and I think I like it.

Fast but considerate bike racing, no suicidal moves, clever tactics and a right old tear up to the finish line… veteran racing rocks!

To be fair, I base this view on the evidence of just one event, Wednesday’s second edition of the new Surrey League vets series at Dunsfold.  Time and familiarity may temper my unbridled enthusiasm for the veteran format, but for now the expression ‘so far so good’ scarcely does it justice.  I had an absolute ball and was still grinning like a loon as I stepped back into my house after the drive home.

Don’t think for a moment that this is because it was easy meat; quite the contrary.  The average speed of the race was more than 2mph quicker than the previous Friday’s 4^th Cat event (a little about that later), which doesn’t sound a lot but makes quite a difference when you’re in amongst it.

The early laps, when what proved to be the winning breakaway formed, were the toughest I’ve had in any race, blindingly quick (every glance down at my speedo indicated north of 30mph), leaving me hanging on for grim death.  And that was with my legs feeling as good as at any time since I started racing!  Thank heavens I had good form, otherwise I’d certainly have suffered the ignominy of being dropped despite my relative youth compared to many others around me.

Chapeau, guys! (pic: Glyn Durrant)

The break itself was a masterstroke by the two Charlotteville CC riders present (and pictured above).  As we readied ourselves for the start no-one paid them much attention, despite them positioning themselves a bike length or two ahead of anyone else.  Then, as we all faffed about, clipped in and rolled off they stepped straight on the gas, instantly forging a lead of 30 or 40 metres.  I slotted in quite near the front as the bunch took shape and, if I’m honest, I assumed they’d ease up and drop back into the pack – an assumption that cost me any opportunity I might have had to join in the fun.

When it was clear this was a premeditated move and not a mistake, a couple of others set off to bridge across, but most of us sat tight; it was very early in the race after all.  Crucially, riders from Brighton Mitre and VC Meudon, the two best-represented teams in the race, then got into the break, allowing their colleagues to block and disrupt the chase.

Once the race’s only 1^st Cat (and subsequent winner, for the second week in a row… remind me to bring him some fish in a barrel next week…) had powered across, the game was pretty much up.  By that time, though, all hell had broken loose and the chasing pack was motoring along as already described.  I saw my only likely route out of the bunch as being backwards, not forwards, given that my heart rate was showing as 200bpm, a level I’d always reckoned to be my absolute maximum…

The chasing pack was well controlled by the Mitres… I could point out my helmet but despite the obvious double-entendre potential I won’t… (pic: Glyn Durrant)

Thankfully the race then settled down a bit and the cat-and-mouse of chasing the break began in earnest.  Having recovered well from my mini-crisis I started to ride smoothly and confidently, even contributing a few pulls on the front once a bit of through ‘n’ off had been organised by the Southdown Velo guys, none of whom had made the break.

The chase evaporated with a couple of laps to go, when it was clear the break wasn’t going to be caught.  I busied myself for the minor place sprint and, as the bunch sped round the final bend, I placed myself on the wheel of a big, powerful chap from the Brighton Excelsior club who gave me a lovely tow.  My ‘sprint’ took me past him even though I still couldn’t force myself out of the bloody saddle, then I kept up the pace until about 75 metres out, when the afterburners failed to fire and I slipped back a bit.  I finally finished 14^th in my under-50s category, respectable enough when the first five finishers were among the breakaway artists.

That’s all well and good, but why, I can hear you ask, was it quite such a wonderful experience?  Simple.  Throughout the entire race I was able to ride in the bunch with almost total confidence in my fellow competitors, allowing me to concentrate on my bike riding rather than fretting about my imminent demise amid a pile of bodies and broken carbon fibre.

These vets know what they’re doing.  Sure, they’ll squeeze and intimidate you – it is bike racing after all – and if you leave the tiniest gap they’ll have it.  But I saw none of the swerving, unnecessary braking and other dumb manoeuvres that frankly put the willies up me in the 4ths.

Paul Webb, an online pal (and photographic contributor to the blog) whom I was delighted to meet for the first time at this event, raves about veterans’ racing and I can absolutely see his point.  As I mentioned at the outset, the Dunsfold series is a new one this year and numbers are still building, but once word gets around I can see it being a roaring success.  This, of course, will conversely affect my finishing positions, but hey, it’s not all about BC points, as was so amply proven last Wednesday.

======================

I promised a word or two about the previous Friday’s 4^th Cat opener at Dunsfold.  Here they are: forty-first. Shithouse.

Tonight I go back to what – for all this vets racing reverie – must still be my bread-and-butter aim for the season, getting those 10 bloody points so I can finally put down this mangy albatross wrapped around my neck.  Full report to follow…

….even ones in Redhill.

That’s the most positive way to look at the cold and fairly miserable hour I spent huffing and puffing my way around the soggy South Nutfield Surrey League Handicap.  The event was only ever intended to be a means to an end, a race-pace training session to shake as much of the post-Majorca lethargy from my legs as possible in the run-up to the first of this season’s 4^th Cat series at Dunsfold Park.

Smiling in defeat… well, I’ve had enough practice by now. (photo: Mark Tearle)

The other positive: at least I finished this time, unlike my post-Majorca outing to the Goodwood Gallops in 2011.

That said, it was a pity my legs were quite so lifeless, given that the lead group – of which I was briefly a member – took advantage of some powerful pace-making and a shortened race distance to stay away, providing a rare points bounty to the 4^th Cats in it.

In fact, the term lifeless is a fairly generous one.  Fossilised might be closer to the mark.  Or even atrophied?  Hopefully not.  Over the past five years I’ve grown quite well attuned to the various signals my body sends me while riding a bike.  And on this occasion, such was the paucity of power available to me from my very first pedal stroke, I came pretty close to pulling the plug before the off.  I hadn’t felt as clunky since my jour sans in Majorca last year.  This was really not good news…

The hilly South Nutfield course was ill-suited to such physical shortcomings, featuring two long upward drags in its six-plus miles, not to mention a couple of tight corners and a group of workmen stationed in the middle of the road clearing a flood just for added excitement.

Sure enough, as we neared the end of lap one the vicious pace up the final climb to the finish did for me and I was distanced, never to recover.  Already rasping for breath, I eased up, thinking that if I could recover slightly by the time the second group arrived I could latch on and all would not be lost.

This worked… for about half a lap, before they too shed me on an incline as my leg muscles simply refused to co-operate in any meaningful fashion, despite much mental pleading on my part.

Staying with the elite group as it sped past on lap three was simply not an option, so I spent the rest of the lap time-trialling as fast (and with as high a cadence) as I could just to make the most of the journey.  I was going to bail out at the end of the lap, but was saved the ignominy of a DNF by the failing light, which meant all the stragglers were given the chequered flag to prevent them having to do the fourth and final lap solo under dangerously dark skies.

So that’s 28^th and 34^th places in my two races so far this year.  A casual observer, inexperienced in the ways of bike racing, might look at those bare statistics and conclude that your author is little more than a ridiculous old fool who should pack in this silliness before he heaps yet more opprobrium on himself and his family.  Perish the thought…

In fact, this is just the moment things are about to get interesting.  Well, as interesting as a few dozen 4^th cats plodding around an airfield can be.  I’m talking of course about Dunsfold.  This, as regular readers will know, is the basket into which I’ve thrown pretty much all my bike racing eggs this season.  Pan flat, reasonably safe, not usually over-subscribed and generally more friendly than most events, these races were pretty good fun last year.  Much more importantly, with Goodwood out of the picture in 2012 the Dunsfold series offers by far my best chance of totting up the 10 points I need to secure 3^rd Cat status.

Various commitments mean I won’t be doing all the Dunsfold races, but I’m in for the first two, after which I’ll be able to take stock before the Lewes Crits join in to make it a Thursday/Friday one-two punch throughout June.

As a well-known TV chef once remarked to the Carrow Road faithful: Let’s be ‘aving you!

Great weather + great roads + great pals = great days

Three miles to go… as the bunch reached the bay the pace was already break-neck, around 30mph – everybody wanted this one and there would be no sitting up despite the 80-odd hard miles in our legs.

I had positioned myself towards the rear, in company with the best sprinters in the pack, refusing point blank to do any work on the front this time around.  Although just minutes earlier I’d declared myself unfit to contest the finish, by now the competitive urges had taken over and I was ready for a do-or-die effort.

A momentary slowing of the pace gave me my chance.  With the bike in top gear I moved up the outside, taking the left hand route to gain protection from the vicious crosswind coming straight off the sea.  With my hands gripping the drops and in a tuck position so extreme my nose was virtually rubbing the stem, I pedalled as hard as I could, relying on the surprise factor to help me to sweep past and break free from the front of the bunch.

A brief glance over my shoulder confirmed that the elastic had indeed broken (the cause of considerable disquiet back in the bunch I was told afterwards) so this was it: shit or bust time.

Just a mile or so to hold out.  I never looked back again, just kept pedalling as hard as I could even though my legs were already screaming and my breathing had been reduced to desperate pants.  The final roundabout approached and I had to change down a gear just to steady my cadence, but I was still in front.  Still no look back.

When the riders got on my wheel it was more of a sensation than anything – I could feel them there, I didn’t need to glance back to confirm the catch.  Through the roundabout and with about 150 metres to go three figures suddenly sped past to contest the sprint; I had nothing left and waited for the rest of the bunch to overtake me.

They didn’t – in fact a quick turn of the head confirmed clear road behind me.  I rolled in fourth, gasping for breath but feeling a certain amount of satisfaction: looking at my three conquerors, one races at 2^nd Cat while the other two have achieved cycling feats of which I could only dream.

Reflecting on a descending mishap that saw me escape a big ditch with milimteres to spare…

Don’t go checking on the British Cycling website for any official results of this contest, though.  Sadly it was only for bragging rights over a cold, Continental lager rather than ranking points; the last of several sprints for signs that much enlivened our team’s truly wonderful training camp in Majorca.

Sitting here now, in the persistent drizzle of a Sussex morning, those halcyon days of last week take on an almost agonising lustre.  What a week.  What an escape from the daily grind, where the only considerations are eating sufficiently (!), keeping our bikes’ tyres inflated to the right pressures and deciding on the day’s route.  Even my job, the nature of which renders it essentially a 52-weeks-a-year responsibility, receded mercifully into the background, requiring just a few hours’ labour after the day’s cycling was done.

That said, don’t assume such trips are just an excuse for a knees-up.  We worked hard this year, a factor of the greater numbers on the trip, many of whom are very respectable racers or time-triallers and who ventured to the island with the stated aim of tuning up for the heart of the season.

Don’t go on a training camp expecting cyclo-touring… they was hard miles…

That was certainly my aim and with just under 440 pretty hard miles under my belt, a dozen decent climbs including marquee names Sa Calobra and Puig Major (“The Pig”), plus many miles of virtual racing, I think I achieved it.

The proof will come in real-world, British Cycling sanctioned combat, not the ‘phoney war’ I opened this piece with.  I have a relatively packed racing programme coming up, starting with a Surrey League handicap tonight, which I hope to use to shake off the rust of my lengthy racing lay-off.

Then the season-long Dunsfold 4^th Cats series begins next Friday, representing my best chance of finally escaping the 4^th Cat purgatory.  And, of course, June’s Lewes Crits are looming ever larger.

Like my solo effort to reach the Puerto Pollensa sign first, I feel I have entered shit or bust territory…

Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned… it’s almost a month since my last confession.

The yawning gap in posts can be fairly easily explained, though: I’ve done bugger-all worth blogging about for just about all that time.

Sure, I’ve been out riding some decent training miles on the bike and have popped in a few tough turbo sessions too, but there’s been no racing whatsoever since the Mountbatten debacle and, at the end of the day, it’s the racing that provides the spice here.

In fact my only genuine cycling-related excitement since last posting came from acting as following car driver for the first of the two road races my team organises each season.  That really was fun; a chance to blast around the lanes of Sussex behind a bunch of decent road racers in ‘Flandrian’ conditions, enjoying watching a race unfold just a few metres ahead of my car’s bonnet.

The experience has certainly piqued my interest in the art of the commissaire; so much so that I will definitely look into training/qualifications in that regard at some point in the future.

I also got accepted into a prominent Category 2/3/4 road race up in Essex, which generated some fleeting excitement.  However, that turned out to be an administrative error and the invite was rescinded almost as soon as it was given.  Perhaps for the best – it was a long drive and would have been quite a step up from my previous racing efforts – but a bit galling nonetheless.

The pity in all this is that, thanks to my intensive start-of-year efforts, I seemed to be going really well throughout March and early April.  I just never got the chance to make my form pay off in race conditions.

Never one to allow setbacks like this to be anything other than hugely discouraging, I promptly sat on my haunches and avoided the bike for a 10-day period, while the booze and pie quotient also ticked up significantly.  The effects of this backslide were predictable: I rode fresh and pretty well on a very hilly route as training resumed, but the aches and pains from that effort are still with me today and, not for the first time, I was given a pasting by our always-strong team DS last time out.

I guess I shouldn’t worry too much about all this indolence, though.  I managed only two races before the team’s Majorca training camp (or if our insurers are reading this, cycling holiday) last year, so it’s not as though I’ve gone from a flood to a trickle in 2012.

Countin' the days, dear reader, countin' the days...

Compared to last year I’ve also got a much clearer plan for the golden months that make up the heart of the amateur cycling season.  In short, it means in making my debut in the ever-popular Lewes Crits, where I’ll work as a domestique for our team, taking in some road-based handicap events, trying to get my 3^rd Cat points at the Friday evening Dunsfold meetings and, hopefully, sampling one or two of the new veterans-only races that the Surrey League is also staging on the Dunsfold circuit this year.

What I won’t be doing is wasting my time on courses that don’t suit my physiology, so that means no Hove Park, no Cyclopark and no Eastbourne seafront crit this year.  That’s a pity for the blog, because the pain, suffering and ritual humiliation of those events made (in my humble opinion) for some of the literary high points in 2011.  But it’s a much more sensible use of my limited racing time.

The bottom line is that I simply have to get out of the 4^th Cats at some point this season.  I cannot face another winter of training slog where I know the end product is to start off once again among the raw beginners and suicidal dingbats who help to make the spring 4^th Cat events such dangerous crashfests.

I already know that a future in commissairing or similar non-combatant role awaits me; it would be nice to put that off for another season or two though…

I used to love watching the Wacky Races cartoons when I was a little lad.  It might even be the source of my lifelong fascination with motor racing, but back then I just enjoyed all the crashes and spectacular mishaps that the likes of The Anthill Mob, The Gruesome Twosome and evil Dick Dastardly would suffer in every episode.

Muttley sees more 4th Cats bite the dust...

My favourite character by far was Dastardly’s sidekick, Muttley the dog.  Every crash, every calamity, was a source of the utmost hilarity to Muttley, who would unleash his trademark wheezy snicker as his shoulders rocked up and down in helpless mirth.

Muttley would have loved it at the Mountbatten 4ths race yesterday.  Crash! That’s a busted collarbone! Heeheeheeheeee. Smash! Bikes and riders catapulting through the air! Heeheeheeheeeeee. Whoops! A rider overcooks the bend and shoots off the track! Heeheeheeheeeeee.

I wasn’t laughing.  In fact, as the race ended I was coasting home, indulging in Muttley’s other trademark, the sotto voce grumble… Sassafrassarassum fuckendangerousclownsarum.

I know what you’re thinking.  Something like: Bike racing is inherently dangerous, stop moaning and quit if you’re too scared. Cluck cluck cluck…

It’s a fair point.  I know the risks.  But at what point do the risks become unacceptably high?  I reckon cramming 41 4^th Cat riders, many of them by their nature absolute beginners, into the tight confines of the Mountbatten velodrome is just such an occasion.  It’s not really for me to tell race organisers how to go about their business, after all riders = money, but the size of that field for that level of rider on that course was an accident waiting to happen.  Several accidents as it turned out.

In my defence, while I acknowledge that as a middle aged family man I hardly have the fearlessness of youth, I think I kept myself pretty well in the mixer yesterday after several incidents that would have seen off a less committed individual.

The first occurred early on, when I’d managed to get myself into a nice spot about six or seven from the front and on the inside.  As we rounded the banked first bend two riders beside me touched, with one barging straight into me, pushing me onto the grassy infield.  I say grassy, it was more like a ploughed field and it needed every ounce of my bike handling skills to stay upright.  I have even more respect for my blogging buddy Rich Mitch, who chose to spend an entire winter riding only on grass and mud – I came perilously close to a nasty spill and even closer to adding a dash of brown to the traditional black and white Bayeux team issue bib shorts…

“Well held,” said a rider behind me when I finally regained the track, 20 or so metres further on.  Well held indeed.  But I’d gone from being handily placed to right at the back, as well as being more than a little shaken.

Paradoxically, the first big crash of the race benefited me, because although it almost took me down it then enabled me to move forwards while riders scattered around the fallen and the race pace dropped.  It was a nasty one, though, once again on the banked first bend, which was causing major problems for newbie riders unable to hold their racing line against the gradient.  One oldish guy from Southdown Velo came off worst: he was the collarbone victim I mentioned earlier.

Usually an early crash like that calms everybody down, but not this time.  To tot up the number of locked brakes, near misses, swerves and other close calls would trouble even Deep Thought, the supercomputer from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  I’m almost 20 races into my fledgling career and I’ve honestly never seen anything like it…

But I stayed right in there, elbow to elbow, and as the race moved towards its conclusion I thought I’d played a tactical masterstroke.  Though I’d forgotten to start my stopwatch as we set off, the actual time indicated we were almost upon the call for the final three laps (the race being 30mins plus three laps).  With that in mind I moved up to second wheel, sheltering behind a big chap in plain black kit.  As we wheeled around for a couple of laps I saw myself as Chris Hoy, stalking his prey in the keirin.  My reckoning was that my advanced position would keep me out of trouble; also that my ‘lead-out man’ was sure to accelerate once the commissaire indicated three laps to go, giving me the perfect launch pad for what I was always intending to be an early jump for glory.

We held this position for about four laps and every time we passed the line I thought: It must be time for the three lap board to come out, what’s going on?

What I hadn’t factored, of course, was that the race had gone off a bit late.  Sure enough, the lap countdown board didn’t come out, the guy in front lost momentum and I hesitated for a crucial moment as riders started to come past us, ending up a bit boxed in.  That error wouldn’t have been fatal, were it not for another rider immediately swerving into my handlebars, causing a sickening wobble that took several seconds to correct, by which time guess what?  Yep, I was almost at the bloody back again.  And then, of course, out came the ‘3 lap’ board.

The second big crash, with a lap and a half to go, put paid to my race.  I was nibbling at the outside, trying to pick my way through a wall of lycra, when three or four riders came a cropper just in front of me.  My wife, who was spectating on the opposite side of the track, said the flying bikes and men drew gasps from the crowd.  This time, thankfully, there were no serious injuries, but after swerving round the mayhem I sat up, uttered a few choice oaths of the fuck this for a game of soldiers variety and wheeled gently round the final lap and a half, my heart having totally gone out of the venture.

Thus in a remarkable parallel with my first ever race, I finished at the back, crossing the line breathing no more heavily than after a stroll round the garden.  In fact I’d raised a great deal more sweat doing my turbo warm-up.  At least this time I hadn’t been one of the fallen, I hadn’t been lapped as a result and I wasn’t facing a bill for a damaged bike.  Several of my fellow competitors were less fortunate, quite a few of them through no fault of their own, just innocent bystanders caught up in others’ ineptitude.

Where do I go from here?  God only knows.  I’m trapped in a Catch-22 situation where my snail-paced development and poor race choices last year have left me stuck in the 4^th Cats and exposed to all the absolute beginners and give-it-a-try chancers who make these early season events so perilous.

I emphasise again – I love bike racing, I love the cut-and-thrust, the tactics, the effort required and even a bit of the ‘physical side’ within reasonable boundaries.  But I will not put my health and livelihood on the line when the risks are allowed to become too great.  Full stop.

Here we go again.  After more false starts than a 100 metre runner with Tourette’s, my racing season is finally set to get underway with a low-key 4^th Cat chipper this Sunday at Portsmouth’s Mountbatten Centre velodrome.

Did I say low-key?  Certainly doesn’t feel like it to me right now.  I have a knot of anxiety in my stomach the size of a medicine ball, a terrible trembling in the hands and sleep patterns that would shame a coke-fiend.

Yes folks, I am both Thinking About It Too Much and at the same time Taking It Too Seriously.  I can’t help it; I can’t stop this recurring image of me crossing the line first invading my waking thoughts.  Call it preseason reverie if you will, I’m hoping this is not an affliction of which I am the only sufferer within the amateur bike racing community.

If nothing else, I suppose it provides quite a bang for my race entry buck… several days of dreaming about winning before the cold reality of failure intervenes.  It’s the same theory that dictates a good proportion of the value of a holiday trip being in the anticipation; value which, if you time your booking well, can last several months.

So, let’s investigate the reasons why Sunday’s race might pan out rather more successfully than any of those I contested in 2011, before turning to the rather more compelling reasons why it won’t.

Why I might do well:

I’m fitter (probably) – after the best part of two months trying (with varying degrees of success) to follow the training plans given to me by my coach, Alex, I feel I’m in better shape than this time last year.  There have been missed sessions, to be sure, but overall the volume and intensity of my recent training has been an order of magnitude higher than preseason 2011.

I can sprint a bit now – my number one ambition for the close season was to develop a proper sprinting technique… no more of this sitting down and spinning furiously nonsense.  After taking part in the Hillingdon Sprintfest and several sessions at Preston Park, this box has been ticked.  However, I have yet to deploy my sprint in a true racing scenario with plenty of miles in my legs, so the jury is well and truly out until I come through that acid test.

The wife and son are going to be there – I don’t want to have to explain once again to my lad why Daddy was at the back when the race finished…

Why I might not:

I’m still not good enough – 44 years old, too slow and too heavy… these are not easy problems to solve without a time machine and/or access to the sort of training time pro cyclists are able to devote to the sport.

There will be flyers in the field – it’s early season, so the pack will be stuffed with fit young whippets itching to move up through the categories.  The sort who are already good enough to do well at 3^rd Cat level, so have the easy beating of fat old fools like me.  I saw it happen throughout the early season last year and there’s no reason to suspect it will be any different this time around.  As last year, my time may come when all the good guys have gone.

Yellow fever of the spine – the Mountbatten velodrome makes for elbow to elbow racing as well as very tight bunch finishes, certainly in the 4^th Cats from what I’ve seen.  I’d better find some bravery pills if I’m going to get myself right in the mixer, as I will have to do if I want any chance of success.

At the end of the day, whatever happens the news will be chip papers almost immediately afterwards.  It will be ecstasy or depression for an hour or two, then it’ll quickly be time to get back in the office to resume my day job while I start thinking about the next race.  That’s what we do, us bike racers.