Cold in Cuckney – Every Second Counts

After achieving a personal best 10 mile time last week, getting a new saddle (more on that later) on loan (thanks Russell Brown) and doing a couple of solid training sessions this week I was feeling confident about the upcoming 10 mile TT down at Cuckney. Course familiarity would surely play a part and give me (and a few of my team mates) an edge on those racing it for the first time. On Thursday night I spent time putting the new Adamo Prologue saddle on my bike and also making a few adjustments, adjustments that I’d hope would see it setup nicely for my Friday night training / pre race session.

Friday night, climbed aboard the bike, immediately sensed the saddle needed lowering a bit but on the plus side the saddle felt ok, nothing being squashed, no discomfort, signs were good. I’d relocated the turbo from outside to in and after 20 minutes I sweating profusely so did a couple of short efforts and then packed up ready for an early morning test prior to the race. This is far from ideal but it’s what I’m having to contend with in the search for comfort.

Race day morning

The conditions had changed quite a bit, it was now quite cold and the wind was getting up so not a day for fast times but having done my customary up, down, up, down of my own road to test the saddle I was happy with things, much happier than last week that’s for sure. At around 1pm I headed down to Cuckney to get ready for my 15:11 start time.

HQ arrival

My previous club Bolsover & District were putting on the event so quite a few familiar faces were at the HQ but having been given instruction to park at the finish line rather than the HQ I signed in, got my number and headed off down the road.

At the layby were some more familiar faces, notably Paddy Gould from Matlock CC and my team mate Bill Seddon. Paddy was off early, which was great for me because I knew I could gauge how things were going by what time he put in. After completing his race he’d done 22:37 from a similar power that he’d normally be looking to try and break that 21 minute barrier. So whilst he was a little baffled, what was clear was that it was a slow day out there.

Due to the cold I faffed around a bit at the start to try and keep warm but finally, having got kitted up I decided to begin my warm up. Being that it’s my local course I had no issues with timings and after a chat with another team mate Jeremy Stone, who’d also been left baffled by a slower time that he’d expected I decided the best way to get warmed up would be head back to the HQ then use the hill to the start to get the blood pumping. I was annoyed at myself for forgetting my tiger balm to warm my legs up, must add that to my pre race list.

Race time

I arrived at the start with a few minutes spare but whilst my mind was slowly getting in the zone, I was cold, so much so I kept my gloves on. With my ex-club mate Craig Devonshire on pushing off duties I readied myself for the blast down the hill, clicked start on the Garmin and then as the time keeper finished his countdown off I went. Before I go on, I’ll just say the marshaling job done on this course was superb, there are quite a few junctions, each one was manned by someone in fluro, it gave me great confidence as I passed each one.

Photo courtesy of Craig Zad 

Comparison to last week

So, back to the race. After the gift hill start I buckled down to battering myself to the turn which is about 5.5 miles from the start, with very cold temps (about 6-7 degrees) and a headwind approaching 12-15mph I found the going tough, much tougher than the warm temps of last week. I was trying to keep to my intended power and carrying out my strategy, things seemed to be going ok, power looked good and despite a bit of fidgeting the saddle felt fine.

Last week, it was more about being aware of the speed of the traffic passing you, this week as well as traffic it’s the surface that requires attention. Generally it’s very good, much better than Hatfield, but it does demand your attention. A few places on the way out I seemed to lose concentration, almost to the point of having to tell myself to focus, but this was more likely due to the nature of the course and the power going up and down rather than my own brain so I kept pushing on.

About 1.5 miles from the turn I passed Conor Mcguigan and then the next thing to focus on was the hill before the turn and then turn itself. As I climbed the hill I felt slow, I should have pushed harder at the bottom to carry some speed but I eventually reached the top (it’s only a 200 metres in length, it’s not exactly Ventoux) I was determined to nail the turn. I gave a quick glance back and then had to give an arm signal (costing time) to show I was going right. Moving to the outside I passed one exit and then kept to the inside of the next, slowing slightly as a car was actually coming before exiting the third part of the turn without being hindered. Course knowledge is vital on the turn, there were quite a few riders saying they lost time, well tough!

Home run

4.5 miles to go, conditions more favourable it’s time to really bang out every single watt you can muster in search of a good placing on that leader board. Miles 5.5 to 7.5 went by in a blur, indeed looking at Strava I was actually 9^th overall on a segment that had been created, 5^th on the day so clearly I’d got back up to speed quite quickly. That theme continued for the whole return leg, I was only 26s slower than the race winner, although this was probably due in part to not going hard enough on the way out.

The last couple of miles were pretty painful, although thankfully not saddle related. I was giving everything my legs had and as I reached about 9.5 miles I really went for it, cresting the final small incline and then accelerating toward the best site in Nottinghamshire, the finish line. As I crossed the line I hit the stop button, 22:25 flashed up (matching my existing course PB, set on a better day), so add on a couple seconds and I’d be looking at 22:27, first emotion was satisfied, second emotion get turned around and get a drink.

Having got changed and packed the bike away I got out the iphone so I could do some videoing. As Bill came back to the car he seemed pretty satisfied, having given him my time he said he’d done similar. Having got some footage of Simon and also of Dan we decided it was time to head back to the HQ.

With Dan one of the favourites and myself and Bill doing the times we had, the team prize would surely be ours. Sure enough as I entered the HQ, on the projector my time came up as 22:27, a few minutes later Bill’s came up, 22:26, git!!!! But moving on….. our names were well within the top 20 at this point, we’d gone pretty well.

Bill vs Murph

At the turn I was 2 seconds down, 4 seconds quicker at 8 miles, after 9.5 miles we were level, at the finish I was 1 second behind.

Results

Scanning the leader board every few seconds, our positions were holding, current leader was Simon Beldon from SSLL racing team, 20:56 was his time. Only question now, could Dan beat it? The next time I looked around Beldon was now in second, replaced by Dan with a 20:53!! Bosh! 1^st place for Dan, confirming we’d also (with Bill and me) got the team prize. A good day both individually and for the team.

Result Sheet (abbreviated, there were 110 riders in total).

No races for a few weeks, time to get back to the training, I wonder if that saddle needs adjusting….

RIP Paul Daniels (title seemed apt)

Flying Solo on the O10/3

First solo race of the year and a new course for me, the O10/3 near Ranby in Nottinghamshire. On the right day a fast course as it’s ran on the busy A1 dual carriageway so I was looking forward to seeing what I could do. But first let’s address the ongoing saddle saga…

Friday night, dashed home from work so I could do some testing, an hours testing later and with darkness approaching I gave up as still I was struggling to find a solid position. Saturday morning (race day) some more testing, saddled swapped, bars altered slightly but still no real step forward. I sat in the dining room of my house about 4 hours from my start time pondering what to do, should I race, maybe I’ll be ok once I get going?. If it was raining and cold I may have aborted but with the sun shining, the mercury rising and favourable wind conditions I decided to give it a crack.

HQ

Arriving at the HQ was like arriving at Team Bottrill Village, we had 9 riders signed on so it was great to see some familiar faces, a few of my previous club mates were doing most of the organising so again some more familiarity to settle any pre-race nerves. I really had no idea what would happen today, I had visions of actually sitting up on the bike after 2 miles, demoralised I couldn’t pedal the damn thing but with a 6 mile ride to the start line I guess that’d give me chance to at least try and get in position. I gave myself plenty of time and arrived at the start, in front of me was another TB rider Elliot Maynard, we both offered each other encouragement and then away he went.

On time keeping duties was Malc Smith which made it feel less like an Open event and more of a club type affair, this kept me relaxed and focused on the job in hand, that job would now involve subjecting myself to around 21 minutes of torture on the A1.

Go time

With the time at 14:56, away I went and started the uphill drag to enter the A1, at this point I was out of the saddle so everything felt great, what would happen when I sat down? Thankfully when I did get “in position” the power seemed to be transmitting through the bike and onto the tarmac, I felt like I was sitting side saddle (and thinking a basket might be nice) but still, the speed and power looked good so I settled in. Racing on dual carriageways (DC) can be a bit daunting, you’ve got traffic coming past at twice the speed (and more) than you’re pedaling at, but on the plus side there are no T junctions so no danger of someone pulling out on you.

With a slight tailwind out I was determined to execute the coach’s strategy and put in a good performance, a few miles in and all was well, by luck I was in a sustainable (if a little odd feeling) position and I kept the power within the target range as I pushed onto the turn. My legs felt really good, whenever I asked them to do something they responded, I feared I might pay later but what the hell, doing 30, 32 or 38mph on a DC is pretty exciting so I pushed on. With Elliot (currently faster than me) in front it’d be unlikely that I’d see anyone to chase down, for me this is not a bad thing, it allowed me to focus on my own race.

As I approached the slip road at the turn I spotted a couple of marshals up ahead who directed me safely and quickly around the junction as I headed over the A1 to go back from where I’d came. I got out the saddle to pick the speed back up, at this point I thought “shit, what if I can’t get back in position?”. Again, luckily I was back in position and pressed on for the return leg. The return leg was slightly shorter, about 4.5 miles, it’d be slower too with a slight headwind to deal with but having reached the turn in 10 minutes 33s (averaging 30.4mph) I knew I’d paced it to pretty much perfection, all I needed to do now was keep it above 28.5mph average and I’d achieve my goal of breaking 21 minutes.

Home

As the miles ticked by my average speed slowly started to drop (I expected this) so it was all about keeping my head, keeping those pedals turning and really focusing on my position. As you begin to tire the natural reaction is to start lifting your head up to get more oxygen in but that puts you more in the wind and slows you down so it’s really key to hold that position even when you feel you can’t. With 2 miles to go I was still feeling good, confident that I’d have enough in my legs to not come to a standstill on the tough last mile.

After a close pass from a lorry that unnerved me slightly I just really kept myself low and pushed with everything I had. It’s in these last 2 miles that things seem to go very slowly. A look down at the Garmin, on track time wise (calculated from average speed), it showed 1 mile to go. Not sure if it’s just me but I try to mentally vision how far that is based on other roads I travel on, those 0.1 miles ticked down very slowly before it showed 9.7 and 0.3 to go.

For some stupid reason I thought about Monsal Hill Climb, that’s 0.3 miles long, albeit at a 13% average gradient, why could I not think of a nice flat, smooth piece of tarmac, with the sun shining. Well, no matter it seemed to work, in fact there may have been more in the tank as I pushed 10% more power in the last 0.3 miles than I’d done as an average overall, maybe I’ll hit the go button at 9.5 miles next time.

As I crossed the line I hit the stop button, my average speed told me I’d done ok but the time that flashed up was 20:43, I’d done it, I’d beat my previous PB of 21:01 set on the faster V718 course in Hull, I figured it’d be more like 20:45 (due to the lag of the garmin when setting off) and sure enough as I came back to the HQ the time was confirmed as 20:45. Happy with that, especially for race 1.

Team

Pleased with my own performance I then started scanning the time sheet for other riders, I’d had 3 goals for the day, sub 21 time, top 20 finish and to beat 3 of my rivals, all achieved so a really good day for me but not just that it’d been a great result for Team Bottrill. We’d actually taken the top 3 spots, Aaron Ward winning in 19:38, Elliot in 2^nd with 19:59 and Dan Barnett (my coach) in 3^rd with 20:05 and we had all 9 riders in the top 20, I was placed 12^th overall.

Top is Aaron, bottom left Elliot, bottom right Dan.

 

As we replenished our energy supplies on cake it was great to chat with so many TB riders, many of whom are from different districts so that won’t always happen but needless to say there’s a great camaraderie within the team, all pleased for each other, all pulling together to help us all go faster.

More Bottrill riders, Bill Seddon (L), Andy Cutts (R).

A special thank you to all the organisers, time keepers and everyone at the HQ and also to Brian Hall for taking some superb pictures. Next week, it’s the O10/5 course at Cuckney, this promises to be a great event with a full field of 120 riders expected, a slower single carriageway course but one I’m very familiar with, I’ll be targeting a course PB and getting as high up the leader board as possible.

 

Thanks for reading

Season Opener – Pain and Gain

Finally after 5 months of training mainly in a freezing cold damp outhouse the race season arrived. Due to work I’d sadly missed the team launch but was keen to get cracking.

As with last year it was the 2UP 25 mile event put on by Sheff Rec at Hatfield Woodhouse (or Hatfield Roubaix as it’s now being called due to the terrible surface) where I’d be opening my 2016 account. Now racing for Team Bottrill I teamed up with a fellow team member Andy Cutts as it seemed we were quite well matched in terms of times produced last season. Having never met Andy, we’d managed a few conversations on facebook where I basically rambled on about rubbish trying to empty my usual over analytical mind about race tactics, to cut a long story short we appeared to be on the right page so all looked good. However………..

I’ll be honest and say I was very apprehensive about this race, last year I’d been fighting anxiety, this year (and the back end of last year) I’ve been fighting comfort issues with my saddle. Despite the bike fit I had, the issue, if anything has gotten worse and at times I’ve honestly wondered how the hell I’m going to race this year.

I’m of the firm belief that without the coaching from Dan (and the constant bothering of my team mates Travell and Seddon) I would have been in terrible shape as the season approached because quite frankly the stresses of trying to get comfy on the bike have taken their toll. Despite battling comfort issues and my training being compromised, it’s not been derailed, sure my CTL should probably be about 10 points higher but physically I’m in decent shape. But back to the saddle, essentially I had no idea how I would handle things in the race, I’d done a bit of testing on my road and one session along the A6 in Derbyshire, but it’s not the same as being on the rivet on race day so apprehension was the emotion of the day.

Arrival at HQ

It was very cold and typically windy as I arrived at the HQ, Andy and I bumped into each other and after a brief chat arranged a few things, including deciding to warm up together. Once kitted up we ran into Dan and Billy and then later Simon and Bill who made up the 3^rd Team Bottrill team on the day. Skin suit on, embrocation applied, Roubaix warmup top to keep warm and then finally the TT lid on it was time to begin the warm up. It felt good to be in the Team Bottrill kit. Both Andy and I had warm up instructions but if we are both honest they kind of went out the window as we basically just rode around the loop of the HQ to keep warm and practice some changeovers. (sorry coaches).

Race Time

With about 8 minutes to go Andy had a slight mechanical which required a trip back to the HQ, getting to the start on time would now be tight but these things happen, this first race is actually ideal for ironing these gremlins out. The effort to come was more important. Sure enough despite a mad rush to the start we were late, only about 45s but still late. Luckily with it being a 2up and people starting at 2 minute intervals we were slotted in and off we went, albeit 90s late. (I think both of us hoped we might get off with the penalty).

With the countdown completed we shot off up the hill, negotiated the roundabout (RAB) and buckled down to business. I knew instantly this was going to be tough as I was already fidgeting around on my saddle desperately searching for something resembling comfort, but letting my team mate down was not an option so we pushed on.

With the late arrival I’d used the wrong Garmin display screen but eventually found one that would be of use and continued on our way to the next RAB. Having never ridden together before our changes were pretty damn good, we communicated well, neither of were concerned with willy waving and surging through, we just concentrated on making them smooth. The surface wasn’t great as we bumped and bobbled along but as we reached the turn (a turn I got lost at last year) we had covered the first 6.6 miles in 14:48 averaging 27mph.

We’d targeted a time of around 58 minutes, in warmer and more favourable conditions I’m sure we’d be looking at nearer 55 but today a 58 would be acceptable. With the turn negotiated we soon got back into position and made our way back from where we’d came. On the way back we passed a couple of riders so were obviously going ok, we also spotted a couple in a layby who’d clearly had an incident of some kind. Some sections of road are pretty horrendous, my eyes felt like they were jangling in my head, throw in a headwind and it really tests your metal.

As we proceeded Andy shouted up that the wind would be slightly better in this section, this gave me a lift and allowed me to momentarily forget the pain coming from my groin, my saddle was clearly trying to kill me. As we flew past the start area I heard some words of encouragement from a rider getting ready to begin their own race, I’m pretty sure it was my coach Dan, no time to wave, we just kept the wheels turning. We’d made the return trip of 6.5 miles in a slower time of 16:13, averaging 24.4mph. So now we were 13 miles down, 12 to go, 10 of those on the more familiar 10 mile course.

We’d get a tailwind to the final RAB, a small consolation for the bad surface, but that obviously meant a headwind for the 5 mile run for home. But forget the run for home, I’ve got more fidgeting to do before that. Fidgeting on the bike kills your power which kills the speed, I’ve no idea how many turns on the front I did but even if I lost 0.5 seconds with every other fidget they add up. We both knew where the really bad surface was so ended up pretty much in the middle of the road at one point but time wise I felt we were still on track.

I think it’s fair to say Andy got the better of the deal, he got more shelter behind me than I did him but power wise I was managing things so still all good as we made the final turn. We did the outward 5 miles in 10:31, averaging just over 29mph, looking at my power it was a little down on the earlier splits but I do think I was holding fractionally back for the head wind to come.

Turn and Burn

Roundabout negotiated, now the run for home, 5 miles, bumpy surface, headwind, the joys of the UK time trial scene eh. By now the pain in my groin had turned to agony but the pain in my legs as we gave it everything masked this a little so I was able to keep things going. With about 3 miles to go I was tiring, the cold and mild flu I’d still not fully recovered from had robbed me of some endurance but we continued pushing. I think Andy probably had more in the tank towards the end but we kept the turns coming, albeit a bit quicker now but nice and slick as we surged toward the line. Last 5 miles done in 13:30, or about 22mph, even with a headwind that’s slower than both of us would have expected.

I knew once I crossed the line things were going to get worse, that’s a bizarre thing to say when you stop but the saddle had broken me, the agony level had increased to the point I could not even sit on the saddle, but after collecting kit I got back to the car and climbed off the bike. I could barely stand, the impact of the poor comfort had affected my whole leg, nothing appeared to be working as I literally collapsed into the car. Getting my overshoes off was horrendous, getting my kit off even worse, walking, another step up from that.

Results

As I limped into the HQ Chris Ledger (a fellow racer) asked what was up, (the grimace on my face giving the game away), he took me to one side, well into another room actually and before I knew it he had me planking and offering advice. I’ll try and heed some of that, thanks Chris I really appreciated your time.

We’d done a long 57, 57:57 but with a likely penalty to come, getting in the top 10 would be very unlikely. There was some confusion as we saw a time of over one hour but by now all I wanted to do was get home, I honestly didn’t know how I was going to drive at this point the pain was that bad.

Before I left we’d spotted Dan and Billy, sadly they’d had a double puncture and had to walk about 3 miles back to the HQ in cycling shoes (wrecking them in the process), in the freezing cold, that must have been horrendous but not quite as horrendous as what happened to Bill. As I was exiting the car park, I saw Bill, he was a bit banged up with cuts to his hand, he’d actually crashed. Skin suit ruined, a few bits of his bike broken and some lost skin but thankfully no more than that, he was actually back out training the next day.

Utilising the cruise control I made my way home, the saddle glaring at me in the rear view mirror, I’m sure I heard it laughing. In terms of the result we were 18^{th (out of 63)}, we’d have been 11^th, only a few seconds off the top 10 without the penalty, that looks good for the season ahead, well once I’ve sorted my saddle, Andy’s sorted his bike, Bills got a new skin suit, Dan’s got some new shoes and Billys fixed his puncture, Simon I think was OK!

Next race, Saturday the 12^th March on the O10/3 near Ranby, fast course, 9 Team Bottrill riders on the start sheet. It’s time to #smashitup again.