A wet race today on a bit of a hot dog circuit too.
The race was an O60 race only 20 minutes drive from the hotel, luxury. Long leisurely breakfast, long telephone conversation and still had loads of time to get to the start to sign on. Contrary to my expectations I was not punted into the next age group, but given we had the reigning O60 World Champion, the new European Champion and the new Belgian Champion on the start line to push me up a grade might have been a bit tough.
I rode this course last year and found it pretty tough, some really slow corners with sprint type efforts to get back up to racing speed. Two major differences this year, I'm not having to race with the 30+ year old's in the 'open' category and I'm a lot stronger and fitter this year.
The race started dry but got wet with heaps of standing water but fortunately not on the corners. To be honest this race was never going to finish with me not at the front and in the mix, however from my perspective it was a very negative race that it's really hard to enjoy. Every single time I jumped across to a break, the break stopped working it was ridiculous, every rider was prepared to not pursue their own chances as long as it meant that I wasn't at the front, really bizarre.
The WC was sporting some new bandages so didn't really feature presumably because of his injuries, I never really saw much of the European Champ, he was pretty invisible assuming he finished the race and the Belgian Champ was really p****** me off, he was riding like a schoolboy. He kept leaving me gaps and trying to back me off, really juvenile stuff that was unworthy of somebody wearing a champions jersey. He wasn't so happy when I gave him two barrels of good old anglo saxon invective, even his mates were laughing at him then, he wasn't too keen about my knee nudging his handlebars occasionally as I brushed past him either.
The last three laps it was really tipping it down, warm enough but very wet indeed and given that the finish sprint consisted of a sweeping 90 degree turn a further right kink and then a left kink all in the last 300m , I had already decided to opt out of that sprint. I wasn't going to get into any heroics over 40 Euros on tight wet corners. Two laps to go there were 6 riders away with nobody interested in chasing, just after the bell I jumped away and took half a lap to catch them and they were trying very hard to stay away from me. As I coasted onto the back looking for a bit of a breather before setting up for the sprint, they propped wanting me to go to the front, then the bunch caught us, they had certainly been chasing me. So I sat up. Straight sprints are more my thing anyway.
Last year when I was here I didn't notice any negativity but then I was always in a grade that was way too tough for me and just about hanging on in each race. This year I am extremely competitive and not enjoying it so much.
I also discovered today that the race I did the other day was for 40+ year old's, not 50+ as I thought, that would explain all the 'baby faces' in the bunch, no wonder it was tough up that hill!
There is apparently another association that I can race with that has a greater degree of split between age groups, so I may try them for my next race, they are pretty local too. Hopefully they will give me a run in my age group, the one thing I really would like to do is get a win and get a photo of my two handed victory salute for Harry! First things first though I need to cross the line first!
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