Another day out at Hillingdon, and living the life of luxury this week with my fiancée Sophie and her Dad driving me out to the circuit in the warm car. Makes a big change from the last two weeks of dodging traffic on my route across North London to Southall (and on that note: when did it become acceptable for pedestrians to berate cyclists going through a crossing when the traffic light is green? I understand when it's red for traffic, but pedestrians should still expect me to hoon through even though there are no cars with me when my light says 'GO'!)
Anyway. I arrived in bags of time, so spent most of the time hiding in the car trying to keep nice and warm. I put the trusty Trek together and gave it a quick check. My Michelin Pro3 tyres are really starting to show a lot of wear, but my new ones should arrive next week. It's amazing how many little holes there are in the tyre now, but thankfully no actual punctures to deal with. I've definitely been lucky there.
Today was the first day that I pulled out my full winter gloves, because after a couple of laps 'warm up' it was obvious that my hands were probably going to be blocks of ice by the end if I didn't change. I haven't had to use them yet in the series, and I don't like using them for races because of the reduced precision in gear changes, but I didn't have a choice. It was f-f-f-f-f-f-freezing!!
Well, it was all right once we got going. The wind from the north was a new one for me, having had a lot of south-westerly, one due westerly and one due easterly. It turned out to have quite a marked impact on the general dynamic of the race. Usually the uphill finishing straight is the favourite place to attack, since the speed of the chasing bunch through the double hairpin is fairly constant, and then the breakaway can push on using the slope of the hill down the back straight. But in this race, an attack up the hill was almost impossible to make unless you were lucky enough to catch the bunch in an unresponsive mood.
Straight from the start, riders went off the front in ones and twos. The most effective break happened right at the beginning of the race, and the rider held on for a good number of laps. But the wind and the distance still left to run were always going to be too much for one rider to contend with. In general, the riding was of a good standard this week, without any serious mishaps. The only dramatic moments were when the bunch slowed down and people were slow to react. Most of the efforts were marshalled efficiently by those up front, often with breaks coming back into the bunch because of a reduction in the break's pace rather than any massive sprint from the bunch. That said, sometimes we absolutely FLEW down the back straight with the hill and tailwind, often touching 32+mph.
The 4th Cat race seemed to be fairly quick this week, and as a result we didn't catch up with them until very late in their race. The organiser seemed to encourage us to make the overtake when they only had three laps left to run, although I had thought he was going to ask us to neutralise for two laps to be honest! Anyway, we made the pass without too much of a kerfuffle, although several of the people around me seemed to be panicking as if the rest of the 3rd Cats would shoot off without us. No such drama, but something else equally predictable.
There was one 4th Cat just ahead of the 3rds, but with so little distance left to run in our own race, no one was keen to make an attack or even generally up the pace. So as we came up the finishing straight (I was about two-thirds of the way back in the pack), there seemed to be a lot of shouting from behind and suddenly 4th Cats started to shoot through gaps that weren't really there. All pretty sketchy stuff, but thankfully no one that I saw went down even though everyone was very tightly bunched together. But there was no time to relax, because the 4th Cats all slowed down (understandably) after crossing the line and turned into moving obstacles for the rest of us. The reason why circuit races work without too many accidents is because everyone is always driving forward, but as soon as you lose the ability to predict what a rider will do, everything turns to shit.
A few near misses later, I was free and flying along near the back of the group. With only a few laps to go, I was conscious of the need to make my way forward but every attempt seemed to come to nothing as everyone else seemed to have the same idea. I wasn't keen to make any stupid grass-based manoeuvres like one person I saw two weeks ago, so I just had to suck it up and see how things panned it. Coming through the bell, I still wasn't well placed. James Walker from High Wycombe had made a strong move off the front, but the bunch had been going fast and a final sprint for the line seemed inevitable. Through the hairpins for the final time everyone held the lines. I was still stuck on the left - good for energy saving (shortest way round) - but no good for breaking through to the front as riders always packed the inside. Coming through the top corner I moved to the middle of the track.
Although the front riders were all on the left hand side, behind them everyone was everywhere. Moving as fast as I dared, I squeezed through, relying on the general principle that an overtaken rider will gladly give you half a bike length if you give him the chance to jump straight onto your wheel and be dragged along. Luckily this worked and by the end of the back straight, I had no one in front of me on the right hand side as everyone hugged the inside, hoping for shelter coming up the hill into the wind for the finish. My max speed was 36.8mph and that probably happened here as I flew round the bottom two corners. If there had been a crash like three weeks ago, or any rider had moved out to overtake someone, my race would have been over. But as it turned out, I had half the race track to myself and plenty of room to lean into the corners and take them at full blast. The wind hit me hard at the bottom of the hill, but I was still flying past riders. As I came to the right-hand kink, I quickly tucked in behind the leading group of about 8. I changed up a gear because of the slower speed, and when they moved left to take the second kink, I took off up the right hand side and buried myself, taking the win by a bike length.
Absolutely over the moon! From the look of the video, the top 15 are only covered by 5 or 6 bike lengths, so there must have been a lot of riders boxed in as the whole pack came through together. I was very lucky to be sure, and there were a lot of moments in that last lap when it could all have gone pear shaped. But it was a fantastic feeling, and one that I'll use for a very long time, especially in the middle of a grotty training session. Keep 'em coming! Onwards and upwards.
