Well my cold took hold eventually and put me off the bike for a week. This week led into a weeks holiday on the Algarve where every meal seemed to come with at least 3 courses and a beer or 2, not to mention the wine and deserts. Suffice to say I came home well rested, tanned and somewhat inflated.
My first return to the bike was on a horribly windy Llety Gwyn course and I put in an awful 27:24. Reports from established club members were that they had never ridden a TT into such a strong headwind. My 2-3 weeks off the bike weren’t helping either.
With that performance behind me I got back into the swing of things and did the chaingang the following evening. Again a windy night We set off in groups of 4 and I went in the middle of 5 groups. Quick pace to start and I blew before Ynyslas. Legs were in tatters and couldn’t hit anywhere near my usual HR.
That weekend I was coerced into racing at Shrewsbury for the first of 3 races put on by Wolverhampton Wheelers. I knew I would not perform based on the weeks riding and I wasn’t wrong. I blew up at half distance and lost touch with the back of the bunch, pulling up at the commissaire on the following lap. A clubmate had gone down hard whilst trying to bridge from the bunch to a break of 2 after a prime so we sat and watched the rest of the race from the sidelines. Pace seemed faster than usual and there was a lot of experienced 3rd Cats racing as well as 3 or 4 Irish development squad lads, all of whom ended in the top 10. A few breaks got away for a while at points which is rare for a 3/4 race at Shrewsbury in my experience.
Last night was a Cwm Rheidol 10 and as I’d raced on the weekend I didn’t have my TT bars fitted yet. When signing on I found out that we were running a spot prize for fastest Roadman (road bike with no aero kit) so I lazily opted for this and left my bars off. It turned out to be quite fun, knowing I wasn’t out to do a PB. I managed a 27:12 on a slower windy course which is 20 seconds better than my PB last season on a road bike without bars. Happy enough with that for now. There was a photographer out on course so I’m trying to track down photos. Watch this space.