Imperial Winter Series - Race 3 - 17th Dec 2011

Race number 3 and a pretty similar format to the previous two races. Lots of attempted breakaways, but whenever anything got too intense, there always seemed to be riders on hand to chase them down. I had some fun myself at the start - I'd had a long warm up ride and it was pretty cold, so I decided to see whether I could get away with one or two others early on and catch the bunch on the back foot. I'd seen it done before, but Hillingdon, such as it is, just doesn't seem to allow for that kind of attack. The field is just too big, and there doesn't seem to be any real way to get a few people off the front and make the break stick. The bunch has so many riders that the speed just ramps up and up without any one rider necessarily having to bury themselves.

If we were on pro teams, then we'd just let a breakaway dangle off the front and set things up for our dedicated sprinters. But the way these races work, it's just a constant back and forth and attack and chase, attack and chase...

Maybe we could have some primes thrown in so that there's an extra incentive to spice up the middle of the race?? Just a thought.

Anyway, the race bumbled along at about 24-25mph as usual, and I spent most of my time looking for good wheels to follow. People always seemed keen to try to fly past to take up a stronger position. From time to time I did the same, essentially stretching my sprinting legs up the finishing straight, but I always found myself nearer the back than the front after a few laps. So eventually I relaxed, controlled my breathing and heart rate, and thought about trying to sort out my sprint.

The pace ramped up once the bunch saw the lap markers, but the discipline remained (fairly) good. One rider managed to take himself out, but apart from that it was OK. With a couple of laps to go, a Redhill rider - Dom Clegg - zipped off the front and the bunch didn't react. I suppose we were just close enough to the finish that we all thought that we'd rather save our energy than chase a breakaway which surely couldn't stay away, could he...? My problem with the sprint is all in the set up. So having got stuck in the middle/inside on the first two races, I thought I'd do a double sprint, once around the outside on the back straight, fly round the outside of the bottom two corners, and then up the finishing straight sticking to the right hand side. I was about 10 back going into the final corner, which is as good as I've ever managed, and I lit the burners from the bottom. It's only about 25 seconds of effort, so I never see any reason to hang around. We were flying up on the Redhill rider, and after a near miss going through the first kink in the straight, I thought I could be in with a shout. It's hard to judge the right gear for an uphill sprint, and just when I thought about changing down, a Kingston rider - Rob Sharland - flew past my left hand side. He must've been travelling a good 3+mph faster than everyone else at that stage. I flung my bike forwards so hard that my saddle came right through my legs, and I just scraped into 4th.

Great sprint, much much better than before, and it put me in a much better position in the standings. Onwards and upwards!