Poor Little Iona........

Poor little Iona 2nd week in a row of coming down south to race, and to race alone as her team mates watched on, this weekend was no exception, down Iona came, to race alone!!, there is a conspiracy!!! Why is it poor little Iona is racing alone!!!
And now tomorrow's race at the cyclopark appears also that she may ride alone, as Sandra and Stephi conspire to go a bit further down the road to the wiggle sportive instead......
When will Iona feel loved by her team.....all she wants to do to is feel loved.....

WE LOVE YOU IONA 

Iona and Brit head South......

1st November and Brit and I headed down south again for a weekend of Crit racing and a Hill Climb!  Saturday it was off to Hillingdon cycle circuit.  Steph, Sandra and Brit for various reason's were not racing!  Sandra's conspiracy to not put her bike in car and see how long it would take for me to notice this!  The main reason tho was to become clear later that afternoon!

Reason 1!

Reason 2!

Reason 3!

Reason 4!

Reason 5!

Reason 6!

Reason 7!

Reason 8!

And finally Reason 9!

3pm and it was race time.  I was the only one racing today, while the others were team back up crew on the start line.  Brit very helpfully giving instructions as to how the race should be rode, yet not being on her bike herself!  Anyway long story short, managed to thin group out a little, but it came down to a small group sprint into the headwind, which luckily I managed to win!

Early on in race and Steph is in charge of photography!

Bunch all still together.

Race over it was time to get back home for spaghetti bolonase!  But before we could get much further, Sandra had gone back to car to find her car window had been smashed in!  'Your bag's gone!' she tells me!  I walked around the car, first thought she's winding us up!  But then second thought, No, not even Sandra would take a joke that far certainly not about her own car!  And yep got to other side of car and glass smashed in!

Right so bag gone, nothing to do about it, it s gone deal with it!  Coat gone, s##t, no car key's no way home!  Brit and I were stranded in the deepest darkest south!  Now I know why they didn't race!  On the bright side at least they left me my trainers!  Police came, everything reported and we finally set off back to Sandra's the window zip tied up with a plastic sheet!

Temporary measures!

Brit after a tiring day of spectating at the Hillingdon Crit!

All that was left after my bag got stolen!

 Next day hill climb day!  Nicola, Sandra, Brit and myself were all riding it.
This was to be the shortest hill climb ever, 1min climb in Sudbury, Sandra's local hill climb!
Around 50 riders started with 5 women riding!  We all had to beat Sandra's record of 1min.00.6!  Brit telling us she DOESN'T ride hill climbs!  That didn't matter Baby Tate was always going to win in this sort of event, no matter how much she say's she's not a hill climber! An all out sprint for a minute, how hard could it be!?
There was a strong head wind blowing down the hill, not ideal at all!

Brit

Iona

Hill climbed we headed back to HQ for coffee and cake (the main reason for riding!?)  Then results out and as we thought, Baby Tate wins, by a mile and places 20th over all out everyone including the men, well done Brit!  Time 1min.00.7!  Sandra's record still stands then!
Nicola finishes in 3rd in around 1min.07sec, with Sandra in 4th in 1min.10sec.  Me a long way back in hill climb terms in 1.17 apparently!  Although i reckon it was more like 1.15, but either way still a terrible time!  Sprinters hill!

Hill climb podium, Brit 1st, Nicola 3rd!

Back to Sandra's where a man in a white van was waiting for £140 for our replacement car key so that Brit and I could make it home that day!  Jude was also patiently waiting for Mother's return!

Jude guards Brit's bag!

A good weekends racing despite everything being stolen, and back down next weekend for round 2 of some more winter Crit's!

Iona

A Month Gone By............by Sandra

Time has flown by since the Ras Na Mban, it seems now like a distant memory, but a great racing memory for me, made all the better for seeing the highlights on Eurosport at the beginning of October. Let's hope next year maybe Eurosport may do an hours coverage.....

After the Ras we had a shop open day, 5 of  us came and visited GB Cycles in croyden, to not only see the shop, and thank George and Stephen for their support for the season, but to also see the boys there and chat to any customers about racing and what we have achieved as a team this year. We were well looked after, with cups of tea, and of course we did walk away with some some great kit.

On the Sunday we had all entered the gorrick series MTB which was close by, so waking up to see constant persistent rain was ok wasn't it? because it was off road......and that's what mountain biking is all about???
Whilst we watched Steph show us how it should be done, we saw Claire and Bonny from team Zappi's were also giving MTB a go, something new and outside of road, TT, and crits.
Steph having missed her start time made it look easy, and so it was time for me, Linda and Iona to take the course.
Having done a practice loop, we realised that with the sticky wet deep mud we might be spending a lot of the time running through certain patches or maybe falling off!!!
Thankfully due to my age I only had to do 2 laps, although I felt a bit cheated, but 2 laps of the stickiest wettest and most brilliant course was enough, as I waved Iona on for her 3rd lap (only because she is a bit younger than me), I washed my bike off , in one of the now rather huge puddles which looked more like a small lake!!!

I have to say it was fantastic for the bike handling skills, and leg strength, loved it and definitely will be doing some more, and I'd like to say it would be great to do it in the dry next time please.

Next was a weekend with Brit , Iona , Nicola and myself, we had all entered my local hill climb! Do not underestimate little suffolks flat hills,

But before the hill climb, we had Hillingdon, Brit Iona, Stef and I travelled down, and bravely watched Iona race, it certainly highlights why we ride as a team, and how with your best team buddies to race with, how you can work together, you can learn so much from watching! Sadly though, whilst Iona triumphed and got the win after working so hard throughout the race, my car along with a few others had been broken in to and Iona only had left what she was wearing during the race!! But it did not dampen our spirits, we still drove home singing to S club 7's reach for the stars, and prepared ourselves for race two of the weekend.

The weather for the hill climb was a lot better than last years torrential rain, the sun was shining and it was fairly warm, (on a bike I have to say),  but the wind was right where you don't want it, in the head!,!
There were a record number of entries this year, which was great, with 5 of us girls entered.

I'm  not sure I've ever got it right apart from the first time I rode that climb, ever since then my times have gone up, I'm not sure if it's because I'm analysing it too much now, , but it was still a hard effort, and I'm pleased to say Baby Tate came away the victor by a near 8 seconds and was 20th out of 52 overall, so a big hand to her. Below are photos courtesy of Cycle Club Sudbury.

Sandra 

Brit

Iona

Nicola

There was some fantastic support out on the hill, all chearing us on as we came around the corner, which pushes you that little bit further.

Hill Climb Season, by Karen

After our 'normal' racing season is over, September and October sees a slightly demented and peculiar style of racing - the Hill Climb.  Given that I love climbing hills on and off my bike, I thought  that I would give a few hill climbs a bash this year.  The only Hill Climb I had done previously was European style mass start race which suited my racing personality.  Doing a solo time trial effort up a hill would prove to be very different.
My first race was a 5 minute effort up Leith Hill.  It was only a few days after returning from Italy, so the first challenge was to put my bike back together very quickly.  Local enough to home to cycle out as a warm up, and off I went.  I had cycled the hill a couple of times previously, so thought I knew what to expect.  At the same time, I knew I was up against the challenge of racing hill climbing pocket rocket Maryka Sennema.  All the girls started close to each other, so we all saw each other warming up.  General advice seemed to be 'don't set off too fast', as the hill has two steep parts, with an easier section in the middle.  On starting, I didn't seem to follow this advice, and powered up the first section.  Amazingly, I started to see my 1 minute girl on the road ahead of me, which gave me motivation to chase harder.  I thought I was going very well, so think that I eased back on the effort for the last couple of hundred metres, which may have cost me 2nd place.  I heard Maryka storming up behind me which wasn't a big surprise, but a little disappointing that she could beat me by quite that much over such a short distance.  That was my first lesson in how hill climbing is about knowing the hill in advance.

The main goal was the National Hill Climb Championships, which was on my other local roads, back up in North Yorkshire, on 27th October.  I didn't get to test ride the hill on my first visit as I had picked up a very unusual condition called 'Trigger Finger' that kept me off the bike for a couple of weeks immediately after Leith Hill.  So, I was relying on a reccie by car in advance, followed by two test rides the day before the event.  The weekend came round, and it was billed to be 'the storm of the century' in the south.  The forecast wasn't so bad for Yorkshire, and promised a strong tailwind.  I didn't notice this for the test rides on Saturday, at least not until I turned round to come back down again.  Sunday however was worse weather, which meant the tailwind was stronger and times would be very fast.  19 girls were on the start list including myself, previous GB Cycles guest Nicola Soden, Maryka and defending champion Lynn Hamel.  The rain came and went during the morning, but I managed to stay dry during my warm up.  With one non starter, I was only the 4th starter of the entire competition, chasing the only vet lady and Maryka up the hill.  The hill was another two part hill, with a downhill section in the middle to recover in.  I went hard out of the start again, and felt that I was spinning very well up the first steep section.  I soon got my 1 minute girl in sight and overtook her before the cattle grid.  I knew that one of the keys to a good time on this hill would be to continue to push through the downhill section, so I did that.  Then onto the last section, and retrospectively I think I eased off again, and again it proved to be costly in seconds and places.  Proving her hill climbing quality, Maryka took the title away from Lynn, with newcomer Angela Hibbs (Tyneside Vagabonds) in 3rd.  4th - 9th places were separated by 25 seconds, and I was at the wrong end of that 25 seconds, finishing 9th.  With more experience, there should be more to come if I do hill climbing again in 2014.

UCI World Championships for Masters, by Karen

My final races of the season took place in Trento in the Italian Dolomites, and were the 2013 edition of the UCI World Championships for Masters.  The races were the culmination of a year long series of races through which most competitors qualified for the final.  As I made a late decision to attend the races, I was fortunate that British Cycling were able and willing to nominate me for a wild card place for the final.

We travelled out to Trento via Milan on 19th September.  There was a team relay on that day, but I didn't try to fit this into the schedule.  My first race was the time trial on the morning of Friday 20th.  The route was certainly a challenging one, a 4km alpine descent, undulating valley road and a 2km climb back to the ridge before a final subtle uphill drag to the finish.  The race organisers described it as a TT for specialists, but it certainly wasn't a typical GB dual carriageway TT.  With 30s start intervals, it was inevitable that I would see other riders.  After my previous experience of TTing abroad, I was fearful that I would be shown up, and a poor start without getting clipped in before I set off didn't help to calm the nerves.  But having the two girls who started 60s and 90s before me in sight before the top of the first climb gave me more confidence.  I had made a tactical decision to race on my climbing wheels rather than my TT wheels to give me a feeling of security on the fast descent, and this helped too.  On the flatter part of the course by Lago di Cavedine I caught my 60s girl, and had my 90s girl in sight.  I made the next catch on the lower slopes of the climb, but was also caught by the girl who had started 90s behind me - yikes!  The temptation to dig in and sit on her wheel was huge as we were on the climb, but as soon as I did it, I realised that I could not, and dropped back.  I kept pushing hard all the way to the finish, completing the course in 44mins, and feeling pleased with my performance.  Watching the others arriving at the finish, I realised that I had likely beaten all but 2 or 3 of the other girls in my class.  Unfortunately, problems with the results software, combined with a lot of riders not wearing their transponders meant that results were not available for hours after we all finished.  We took a punt on not attending the prizegiving that evening, which was a good decision, as I finished a very proud 4th (although not finding out for definite until 24hrs after I had finished!).

The big race for me was the road race on the Sunday.  Now, this isn't your typical British multi-loop road race on a flattish course with possibly a short hill coming up to the finish line.  The road race is billed as a Gran Fondo - similar to a sportive in nature, with the added fun of a mass start, and even better, closed roads.  And of course, Gran Fondo means hills, BIG hills.  This route took in 3000m of ascent in 112km, with the final climb of Monte Bondone being 21km long and 6.8% average gradient.

I was in the first group off, and we dawdled along the road until the rest of the girls caught us up, then the hammer went down up the first short climb.  None of the other girls were really doing anything that scared me on that climb and I kept pace with the leaders well.  By the time we were heading back south down the valley, groups were catching from behind all the time, creating what must have been a peloton of close to 1000 riders – it must have been some sight, and only a little terrifying.  It was also a real challenge to keep an eye on where your competitors were – thank goodness for different coloured numbers.  I was amazed that there were no crashes at sharp corners and roundabouts, and soon enough we arrived at the bottom of the second climb (of about 10km) up to Lago di Cei.  I had worked hard to keep a good position in the huge peloton coming down the valley, and I may have paid for this on the climb, as several pink numbers cycled past and away from me.  I just kept telling myself not to panic, that the peloton would regroup heading back up the valley, and Monte Bondone was the real test.

            The descent from Lago di Cei back down to the valley floor is probably one of the fastest I have ever ridden, hitting a speed in excess of 100km/h.  Once back in the valley, another large group of riders formed to take us back through Trento for a 3^rd time before hitting the slopes of Monte Bondone.  I was relieved to see two of the pink numbers that had ridden away from me earlier in the group.  Then it was back into your own little world of pain for the next 21km.  Pacing was critical – set off up this climb too fast and you paid later on. I climbed the first half of it with a Norwegian girl in the 40-44 age group, but she chose to push on as she could see some of her rivals catching her.  I didn't want to go with her, so continued on at my own pace.  Slowly the kilometers ticked down, and I did as much catching of people who had set off too fast as were catching me.  I recaught the Norwegian girl about 2km from the top which was satisfying but unimportant.  Then, I was there, cheering crowds, commentary and the finish line, and of course Chris on the side of the road cheering me on and confirming what I already knew, that I was 5th in my age group. Whilst I hadn't achieved my target of a podium, I knew that I had ridden to the best of my ability on the day, and couldn't expect more than that.

We found some of the other Brits at the finish, which was welcoming, and I also managed to have a bit of a chat with the girl who had finished 2nd, who had also finished 3rd at the Marmotte earlier in the year.

This was a great end to a season that has had me grinning from ear to ear at times, crying my eyes out at others, cursing my own bad luck and the poor quality of other riders who cause crashes, and most importantly, laughing SO much with my brilliant team mates.  Thanks GB Cycles, Steve Wright, Chris (my husband), Garry Palmer (my coach) and my teamies (and guests).  Roll on 2014 - a season for Gran Fondos!

Track Nationals...Jumping in at the deep end

Track Nationals

So I entered the track nationals this year…just to see what was out there. Being completely under prepared I was soon to find out having the correct kit and having practiced on it makes a big difference! So opening my track tt bars the night before my individual pursuit was probably not the best of preparations!

Day one started with the 500m TT, I was up pretty soon so having never even seen a 500m TT being performed let alone competing in one I was really throwing myself in at the deep end entering 3 events over the next 3 days at nationals level having never even practiced these events in training! This is down to not being able to get track time as im not accredited… a strange system which allows me to compete at national level yet not be able to access training at the veledrome :/. I clocked a pretty slow time in comparison to the others girls but that is to be expected on my first attempt when the other girls have been doing it for years, had lots of specific training and the right kit!

Next was the IP, again my lack of experience showed with my poor pace judgement setting off far to reserved after everyone had been warning me not to blow and work into it…next year im smashing it from the start! Some specific practise and I will definitely get sub 4 minutes next year as I was just over that at 4.02 this year.

The Match sprint on Friday was…interesting to say the least and quite amusing really.

My flying 200m was off the pace at 13 seconds however this was due lack of experience as I dropped down off the banks far too early and after watching afew girls after my attempt I realised where I had lost seconds. This will be an easy time to beat next year with abit of practice now that I am currently in the process of getting my accreditation. As a consequence I didn’t get through to the heats which wasn’t a surprise! I didn’t find this out however until I had taken up at least 10 minutes of a very kind man’s time who was part of the Scottish development team who was explaining what a match sprint is looking abit bewildered why I had entered this event at a national level not even knowing what the rules where or having ever done one…iv got to admit I do seem to run before I can walk sometimes! With Nicola soden giggling next to me at my embarrassing confession that in fact I wasn’t even through to the heats I moved on to concentrate on my next and final race, the points race.

This race I felt abit more prepared for as I have competed in the Friday night track league the past 2 years which incorporates points races so I had some idea what I was letting myself in for and for a change I wasn’t the odd one out without an aero helmet! Hayley kindly offered for me to borrow her disc wheel which would have made me on equal terms for equipment unlike all the other races but I was abit scared as I have only tried a disc wheel for about 5 minutes and felt I wasn’t comfortable enough with such an expensive piece of equipment so I opted for my whopper wheels. So the whistle blew and we were off, 6 laps in and the first sprint in coming up 4 laps and something of a red mist comes over me and I decide it would be a good idea to attack some Olympic Champions for the first set of points. Taking a long one 4 laps out I got a considerable gap before being gloriously swallowed 1 lap to go.  A glorious failure! But for a moment I was off the front of a world class field and felt like a champion. The rest of the race consisted of hanging on for dear life which is what I was expecting, but I kept my position and felt really strong. I finished the race with the bunch very happy to have stuck in there with a world class field…it looks good for next years elite crits which I fluffed this year due to lack of form.

All in all an eye opening experience with A LOT to learn in terms of rules, tactics, equipment, positioning and training but looking forward to smashing my times I have now set as my own benchmarks J

By Brit 

My National Circuit TT Preparation – reaching goals and breaking records

In addition to winning a National TT medal, another of my late season aims was to break the female course record on my local 10 course at Bottisham.  When I first started cycling I hated this course; despite living in one of the flattest parts of the country, there is a steep bridge about 2.5 miles in which makes the course quite slow.  Believe me, when you weight 90kgs+ as I did when I started cycling, that bridge is really tough going! I seemed to “crack it” last year though when I finished 2^nd in the University Championship (BUCS) 10 – now I love the course and use it to judge my form and how well I’m TT-ing.  The record that I wanted to beat was 23.12, set in 2010 by Mathilde Matthijsse at the BUCS 10 mile Championship.  Mathilde has since gone on to finish in the top 10 at the Dutch National TT Championships and also won the Tour Ta Malta this year so she is a very strong rider.  I had 3 opportunities in August to beat her record and so was hoping for good conditions on at least one of these occasions! The first was at a Team Cambridge 10 on Wednesday 14^th August.  I had a slightly stressful hour before heading over to the event, having to “Un-UCI” my P4 by changing the seatpost and putting the bottle cage back on.  Although these sound like simple tasks, no job on the P4 ends up being simple and changing the seatpost was no exception! Despite this, I got to the event with some time to spare for a warm up and although the wind was a little higher than had been predicted, it was still relatively low for Bottisham.  I felt good in warm up and was confident of putting in a good performance in my first TT in 2 months.  Sure enough, with about 2 miles to go I checked my garmin and found that I was on track for a short-23.  I gave it everything I had and crossed the line in 23.07, having beaten the previous record by 5 seconds!

Another local club was holding a TT on the same course the following day, which I opted to forego in favour of training.  However, I returned to Bottisham the next Wednesday, 21^st August, to see if I could better my record in the last evening 10 of the season.  Unfortunately, when I arrived at the course I discovered that I had left the arm pads from my tribars at home, having taken them off to dry-out after a particularly sweaty turbo session.  With no time to retrieve them, I decided to toughen up and race without them, hoping that the pain in my legs would mask any pain in my arms! When I was getting ready to race, Laura Massey turned up to sign on.  Massey has been TT-ing a lot more this season and is a really strong rider who is well suited to the Bottisham 10 course so I knew I would have to ride hard to defend my record.  The first 5 miles of the course is much slower than the return 5 and so when I reached the turn in just over 12 minutes I knew I was riding well.  Unfortunately, I then discovered that the return leg would be into a fairly brisk headwind – time to toughen up! I forgot all about my lack of arm pads and pushed as hard as I could to the finish…and was rewarded with a 22.54.  Massey crossed the line in 23.02, beating the record I had set the previous week so it was a good job I turned up to race!

Bottisham 10 results from the final evening TT of the season:

Massey and I had a rematch scheduled for the August bank holiday when we were both racing the VC10 event on the F11/10.  When I first raced this course in June I recorded a PB of 21.02 in driving rain and fairly strong crosswinds so I was looking forward to seeing what I could do in better weather.  The F11 is a favourite of time triallists, being a very fast but relatively safe course on the A41.  As a result, events on the course are always oversubscribed and there is a lot of pre-race chat about them on the timetrialling forum.  The VC10 event was no exception.  First, there were complaints about the fact that all (24) female entries had been accepted, regardless of previous time, whilst the men’s cut-off time was a long-21.  I am proud to say that my PB would have guaranteed me entry into the event, female or not.  Secondly, lots of people were talking about the road surface.  The course is on a border between two different counties, one of which is good at maintaining its road and the other of which is not.  As a result, the first 2 miles is terrible, with numerous potholes and cracks in the tarmac spreading across both carriageways.  Since June, the fast, smooth section of the course has been (unnecessarily) resurfaced with chippings, deadening the surface, whilst the awful section at the start remains untouched.  Thirdly, and finally, there was a lot of talk about wind direction.  When I rode the course in June the wind was strong, but in the “right direction”.  Although the forecast for wind speed for the bank holiday was low, it was in the “wrong direction”.  I thought about it and decided that low wind would surely be better than high wind from a certain direction – bring on a fast ride!

The conditions on the day were lovely – bright and sunny (if anything perhaps a little too warm) with fairly low wind (only about 9 mph).  I had a good long warm-up and arrived at the start, the last of the women to go off, feeling ready to race.  I thought I was going quite well and pushing myself hard but when I looked down at my garmin for time checks I found that I was actually going slower than in June! The newly chipped section of road felt dead and draggy under my wheels and the head-wind for the final 2 miles, although not actually that strong, made life really tough.  I was gutted when I crossed the line in 21.49, convincing myself that there was no way I could win the women’s event with that time and that I had somehow lost form.  Of course I was just being pessimistic and it turned out that I was the only woman on the day to ride sub-22 (Massey finished 2^nd, 12 seconds behind me).  So it seems that sometimes the TT forum does speak the truth – that course is actually much faster with a strong wind than a low one, provided it is in the correct direction.

Photo from the VC10 event on the F11/10:

Some good TT-ing results for the month, proving that I was on good form - bring on the final few races of the season!