Christmas Eve, and another visit to Hillingdon. This time my fiancée Sophie drove me out, so everything was much more chilled this time around. Hoping to build on last week's result, but as it turned out these races are far more difficult to predict.
I had been following the online list of entrants closely, and I was convinced that with a smaller field that if the right breakaway went away, then it would have a good chance of succeeding. The only problem with that theory was that it was (a) still windy and (b) not a small field at all.
I started the race with a cheeky burst off the front - I wanted to stretch my legs and I had someone on the sidelines to impress - but there clearly wasn't much point launching a winning attack off the front so early in the race. I took up my usual position about halfway to two-thirds of the way down the bunch. I reckon that if you go any further forward, then you're constantly battling to hold your position with riders coming up from behind. Whereas if you go near the back (but not so near that you're in danger of permanently losing contact through a split or crash) then you can travel in relative comfort and regulated effort.
From about halfway through, I started to look for this race-winning break that I was so convinced would happen. The only problem was that if you make one yourself, then you won't necessarily have the backup to make it stick; if you sprint to catch up to an established break from the front of the pack, then you're effectively bringing the whole field back together; and if you sprint from further pack to bridge the gap, then you've got to travel a long way with a lot of solo effort and no certain hope of a clean break at the end! So. I think I made six flat out sprints to try to make something happen between 30min and 45mins, but to be honest I was so completely shagged by the end that I can't remember exactly. There was one which could've got away, but the pace in the break slowed up and the whole field were sprinting up the hill to make the connection. And that was the end of that.
The only thing left to do was sit in, try to recover (I could feel that sick feeling when you've been on the red line too many times, and any medium-sized acceleration takes your pulse above 185/190 and you feel like death). Just like the previous week, except this time with 5 laps to go, the Redhill rider - Dom Clegg - hared off the front and the bunch (for once) were content to let him dangle. Well, the thing is, he wasn't dangling at all because he was travelling too fast and too far away with too little distance left to be 'dangling'. He clearly timed his effort perfectly and crossed the line this time a short distance ahead of the sprinting pack. Myself, after last week's successful effort, I had a more standard sprint. In two minds how hard to push the effort in the last two laps (feeling so crap at the time was hard to ignore), I let fly from the bottom of the hill about 15-20 back. There was a split from the front 6 riders, and I crossed the line nicely in that gap in 8th. I'd managed to avoid the previous week's hairy moment going through the first kink to the right by just yelling to the riders in front as I came past. Not a bad salvage job in the end, but no early Christmas present. Shame to be missing the next race on Boxing Day, but still well placed for the series so far!
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