Friday 24th August saw the GB Cycles.co.uk Ladies Racing team leave at 5 am in the morning to catch a ferry across from Poole to Jersey. The plan was to race a criterium on Friday evening, a Time Trial on Saturday and then the main Jersey town criterium on the Sunday, followed by a road race on the Monday. All in all a fun-packed weekend of racing ahead.
We were driven in the team car by Steve our team manager and we arrived in plenty of time for the ferry, settled ourselves in and then the long journey began. I think it was about 2 hours late, which is quite usual for the Condor ferry.
We eventually arrived in Jersey and found our way to the youth hostel (our base for the night), which was on the East coast of Jersey, not far from St Helier. The weather wasn't looking too good and with regular weather checks, a storm was due at about 5 pm, which was when we were heading for the Friday evening criterium race. Right on cue, the storm arrived: just as we pulled into the closed circuit track!! We all sat in the car, looking at each other, looking at the track, listening to the thunder and watching the lightning.
We eventually met Peter Derrick, who advised us that there was no way the crit would run due to the track being flooded. He and his wife Debbie happened to be hosting Steph and Iona from Saturday!
So with the race being cancelled, we decided to go into town and eventually found a very nice little Italian restaurant, feeling the need to get some good food into us before the next day's Time Trial.
The hostel was full with various different groups: one being the Loughborough Uni rugby team. We kind of felt we weren't going to get too peaceful a night's sleep before our early start for the time trial!! However, I think we had our own fair share of laughs and indeed at one point Bohemian Rhapsody could be heard echoing around the hostel, followed by Hotel California!! For some reason we then started to play tricks on each other, and that's how the whole weekend carried on (outside of the racing of course)!! Quite how Steve managed to put up with us at times, I do not know!!! We were giggling for most of the weekend!!
Saturday morning saw force 7/8 gales, which gave us a bit of a cross wind for the time trial. This made it quite tough, but interesting. We all put in a really good effort... results to follow.
With the time trial done, we found ourselves some much-needed breakfast, and then found our way to Iona and Steph's home-stay with Peter and Debbie. We were all invited to stay for a BBQ dinner. The weather had got slightly better and Peter timed the cooking of the meat down to a tee before the next passing cloud of rain!!
That night at the hostel was quieter in my room, but the rugby boys definitely partied. Thankfully it wasn't an early start for the main event, which saw a portion of the town centre closed off for the afternoon's crit racing.
The weather was lovely and the day started off with the youths racing, showing us all how it needs to be done. The Elite women's criterium started at 16:20!!
It was a fantastic atmosphere in the town, and we rode down to watch some of the action and meet up with some of the other girls who were racing, before heading back up to Peter and Debbie's to get changed. (Bear in mind today wasn't the day to perhaps try a new route back to Peter and Debbie's!) We met up with Steve, who put us all at ease, checking our bikes were all ok. The last of the youth races was done, and it was now our turn to get out on the track and warm up!!
I found the course a good one, and once around some of the tight corners I was confident with the course. The start was neutralised, but at a jolly fast pace! Personally I had the worst start I've had: my cleat not going in cleanly and due to doing another warm-up lap found had started right at the back of the bunch. Steph and Iona were in good positions from what I could see. I started to work my way up, but the pace was just too fast and I didn't feel top notch!! That said, I eventually got a comfortable rhythm, and started to work with a few other girls.
Eventually, with about 10-15 minutes left, my race was over, as the lead pack were descending upon us, so we were pulled out of the race.
Iona was up with the lead pack of about 8 and Steph was in the 2nd pack, which eventually was about 30 seconds behind. Steph had cleverly taken charge of the second pack to keep it away from the main pack in which Iona was riding.
It certainly was a fast-paced race, with quite a few primes up for grabs, which were mostly won by Nicola Juniper of Corvida Allpress and one went to Louise Mahe of Team Mulebar Girls. So it was an 8 man sprint to the line, with Iona springing in in 6th place, and Steph in 13th. What a grand performance!!
With much rest needed, we all got ourselves prepared for Monday's road race and then had our diner and an early quiet night... but not before Iona and I had taught Steph how to leap-frog!!! So in the middle of St Helier town centre we were placing police cones on top of each other to see how high Steph and Iona could leap-frog over them!! Steve had already gone back to the car to wait for us!! I on the other hand was offering much encouragement whilst conserving my energy for the road race, we all had to be up at 5am to get to the road race ready to be off at 7:30am.
The weather, thankfully, was good for the start of the road race, and remained so. The elite men set off, followed by the support race, followed by the elite women's road race. We had 5 laps to do, with a nice little drag not far from the start. This certainly sorted out the bunch. Anna Grundy set the pace up the hill, and the pack split fairly quickly.....
Close to the start, as we came back down a hill and along the straight to the start-line, I tried hard to get us back on to the main bunch, eventually running out of gas. Steph managed to carry on through, with a couple other girls, but I was totally spent and told Steve in the following car that I was going to do another lap to warm down!!
I turned for the drag, only knowing that the pack were not that far ahead. Very slowly I started to see a rider ahead of me that i was catching up the hill. This was one of the Jersey juniors, who hopefully will guest for GB Cycles next season: only 16. I said that I would work with her, and went to the front to try and gain some ground. It made a huge difference to me and the way I was thinking, and very soon, I started to notice 4 riders ahead. I rode hard until we closed the gap, and then as a 5 we all worked together. This made made life a lot easier, so my warm down lap never happened!
With one lap left to go, the pace picked up - especially on the home-straight, into a head wind - finishing with a sprint for the line. Steve said we weren't that far behind the main group.
A big thank you to Stephen Delaney of GB Cycles.co.uk, who made sure we had plenty of socks, Zipvit and other kit for the weekend. And a big thank you to Steve Wright our manager, who maybe is wondering just why he does it, and if he can indeed put up with us all for a whole week when we go out to ride the Ras na mBan stage-race in Kerry from the 9th - 13th September.
