Aartselaar, South of Antwerp, Belgium
Sun 2nd August 2015
I have never had so much adrenaline running through my veins as I did at 12.15pm on Sunday. Neither had I ever felt my heart pounding against my ribcage quite like this. The race hadn’t even started; I was just sitting on the start line! The day before my back hurt and even during the warm-up my knee hurt but now, nothing hurt, nothing could hurt as I was lining up against the best 140 riders in my age group on the planet at the World Masters’ Road Cycling Championships!
More than a tad surreal.
Less than a decade ago I was smoking 50 cigarettes a day and I weighed 21 stone. I know I bang on about this a lot but I still can’t believe how far I’ve come and if that inspires one person then I’m happy. I would have bet a lot of money (that I don’t have) on the fact that I wouldn’t have ended up here.
Where’s Wally?!
Every year the International Cycling Federation (ICF) hold these championships for various age groups and I am in the 40-49 year old category.
Not that you’d know; you have never seen such a lean, tanned and very very fast bunch of old folk in your life!!
Ok so the average speed for this 86 km race was a mere 27 mph for just under 2 hours but that did include braking hard into 70 corners (7 on each of the 10 x 8.6 km laps). The the most energy sapping part of this race by far however was holding position.
It was like a war zone out there. Moving around wasn’t like back home because everyone was the same level i.e. world class. Everyone fought tooth and nail for the gaps and there wasn’t an inch of the road, gutters, curbs or cycle paths that riders didn’t consider just to gain a few places.
The first 3 laps or 25 km were over in a flash but I managed to hold my own. I had been here enough times now to know that it’s very important to stamp down your authority and not let riders push you about. I was on my game, riding in the top 5 or 10 for those opening laps, even leading the peloton through the finish line and the enormous crowds on lap 3. A hugely unwise use of my energy I know but when your parents have driven halfway across Europe to support you, as well as supported you in countless races (and witnessed several crashes) it is the least I can do.
And it makes for a very cool photo may I add.
On laps 4 and 5 they went bonkers and suddenly the right, right, left and right corners one immediately after the other put me under real pressure but I had been here 2 weeks earlier racing against the 19 year old future professionals at this same game so today, sorry old chaps but you ain’t going nowhere without me!
I had slipped back a little into the bunch but that was not so much due to the effort but actually when the pace eased it gave the back markers a chance to move up. I was at the World Champs and actually wishing it didn’t ease up!!
I had done the work for this mind. From October to March I had ridden exactly double the miles I had ridden the winter before. I had worked on my flexibility in an attempt to get lower on the bike without sacrificing power, I had worked on my weight, being 6kg lighter than this time last year and bringing my total weight loss now to a staggering 48kg! I had also done the bit that a lot of people struggle with:
I’d suffered.
I’d suffered in training and I’d suffered in racing.
In training I am lucky (!) enough to have a bunch of team mates who are either younger than me or weigh 20 kg less than me. Say no more.
In races I have either attacked the sh*t out of them until I could ride no more or I had entered hilly road races with my aforementioned lighter team mates or gone on trips abroad to ride UCI events against lads over half my age.
I was up for this.
I sat watching my dad drink a large beer in front of me the night before the race, hoping that the discipline I’d demonstrated to both myself and my clients would be worth it.
In order, my goals today:
- Finish in the peloton
- Don’t crash (more my mum’s one that)
- Prize money went down to 30th so I kind of had my eye on that too
With half the race gone I was on for a top 30. It wasn’t going to be fitness that let me down it was going to be positioning and therefore a little bit of luck.
If you aren’t moving forwards you’re moving backwards and today that was more the case than I have ever seen in a bike race. I was fighting fighting fighting but every time I made up a few places the peloton widened and I lost them again. Alex Dowsett says you should always follow wheels as riders pass you and ‘take the train’ up. Believe you me I did but it was incredible how the peloton would instinctively veer to the right if I was moving up on the right and vice versa.
I was beginning to look like today wasn’t going to be my day, frustratingly as my form was there.
Then I reminded myself that this was the bloody World Championships!
I sprinted as hard as I could, for as long as I could, along the left hand side of the bunch, into a slither of a gap before they shut the door and I just about made it to the front. It hurt.
Now I was in the wind, a headwind, we were doing 27mph and I had just been riding at 33mph to get there!
I had to slot in and slot in quick. I did and then a ‘second train’ came over the top of us and I was back where I started! That’s how the last few laps played out. A real lesson in positioning of which, like all of us, I shall be a lifelong student.
We got to the bell and one lap or 8.6 km to go.
“Laste Ronde. Laste Ronde” on the PA System. My favourite Flemish expression.
I was not in the top 30 at this stage but still a wave of euphoria washed over me as I knew I was going to finish such a prestigious event in the peloton. Also I still had about 11 minutes to find my way through to the sharp end.
Riders were bunny hopping up curbs and jumping onto pavements and cycle paths at this point as there were simply too many strong riders for the amount of road on offer. I was prepared to take some risks due to the occasion but that was beyond me right now. People shouting at each other, brakes screeching, the smell of burning brake blocks, elbows locking, thighs touching, lycra on lycra and in no way arousing….exciting racing all the same.
In hindsight I think you need to ride ALL the way to the front (even off the front) every time you can in these situations, just to create space for yourself, even if it means risking blowing up. I will do that more next time, now that I know I am strong enough.
The finishing straight was long, flat (like the whole course) through the town and benefitted from a slight tailwind. We had maxed at 40 mph at some point already during the first 9 laps and lap 10 wasn’t going any slower.
I had 3 concerns:
- I was positioned a little too far back for my liking.
- The road constantly narrowed and widened as we hit the town
Re my position in the bunch, a gap could still open or I might still get on a train that takes me up to the front but if it doesn’t…….
The event was excellently organised on every level except that I did feel that the narrowing sections on the finishing straight should have been marshalled; you know the chappie with the yellow triangular flag and the whistle? We nearly came a cropper several times during the race and, with 500m to go I was getting very concerned about how over 100 of the remaining riders were going to sprint, shoulder to shoulder. I wasn’t going to place but I wasn’t going to give up either.
“I’ll just stay very very alert”
CRASH!!
Riders in front of me all go down, bikes in the air, I slam on my brakes.
“I’ve got away with it?!”
A rider slams into the back of me.
“Oh, I haven’t!”
I am forced into the rider in front of me and we all hit the deck. I am STILL pumped to the brim with adrenaline (I must be careful what I say as there is Doping Control here) so I get straight up, acknowledge the apology from the bloke behind, put my chain back on and finish. Two days later I’m limping as my hip’s pretty bruised.
I have finished the World Championships.
I will never tire from saying that.
Until next year when I’ll say “I finished in the prize money”
My mum, for the record, nearly had kittens. She’s ok now.
A ‘few’ Belgian beers and chips with Mayo to follow. Recovery drink? Stuff the bloody recovery drink!
PB
Hot off the press…..results now in….I came 83rd out of 130 finishers, 1 min 23 secs behind the winner. Considering I spent most of that on the floor I’ll take that!
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