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The 2011 season was a mixture of highs and lows – but overall at the end of the season, I was feeling positive about the year ahead.
In November, I started my winter training with a programme of gym sessions and a good amount of outdoor riding: a combination of on-road and off road riding. The gym sessions were planned with Andy Wadsworth and targeted core strength work that would add to my cycling specific training. Andy’s “Mylife” gym in Bristol is popular with professional and aspiring sportsmen and women including a number of cyclists – not surprising because Andy himself is no mean cyclist...
Four weeks of this regime and I was in good shape to fly to South Africa for some warm weather training. Although I love riding around my home counties, it is a real bonus to have guaranteed African heat! The training camp in Stellenbosch was right up my street: warm weather, wonderful food and a bunch of international riders all keen to get up and get on the bike for some long rides. It’s a world away from a typical British December - muddy bike cleaning and indoor turbo pedalling!
Back to Britain just in time for Christmas – no snow this year and altogether such milder weather than usual. The Christmas holiday was real family time and a chance to see friends who are scattered around the world these days. However, there wasn't much downtime because I had a short but intense cyclocross season planned.
Macclesfield Supacross, 27th December 2011.
I try to race Macc' each winter. It's a tough course, always makes for a good workout and provides an indicator of 'form'. I'd put in a solid block of long endurance work in South Africa but not very much race specific training. Nevertheless my racing legs had not deserted me - I felt fiit and in the end I finished 2nd. I couldn't quite match Paul Oldham but felt I was in a good place to develop race condition in time for the National Championships 12 days later.
West Midlands series Top Barn, 1st January 2012.
Although fairly local to me it was my first time to Top Barn near Worcester. I was really impressed with the race course and organisation and it was cheering to see a big turnout of over 400 riders. The senior race was fast from the start, Roger Hammond, Dan Booth and I came to the front and raced together for the first half of the race, then I made a move with 2 laps to go and held on for the win ahead of Roger.
National Champs Chantry Park Ipswich, 8th January 2012.
Before the race I was chatting to Nick Craig about the conditions and we agreed it would be ideal to have a light sprinkle of rain just to soften the ground and make the course more technical and conditions slightly heavier going to split the race naturally. But the slight breeze remained and the course stayed unchanged. I knew there would be a few guys to watch, Paul Oldham, Jody Crawforth and Ian Field would be competitive from the start. Although you never know what's going to happen until the gun goes and everyone is fighting for positions, I had a plan to try and make it to the front as quickly as possible and enjoy riding hard and see what happened... With 2 laps to go Ian Field and I were together and racing for the win. It was all going OK and I was confident going into the final lap. We were still together with a few hundred meters to go when Ian made a move to overtake me before an off camber corner. Unfortunately he hadn't completely overtaken me before turning into the right hander and clipped my front wheel. I went down and although I remounted as quickly as I could, the few seconds he gained were enough for Ian to hold on for the top spot. 2nd again for me...well that’s racing.
National Trophy final Shrewsbury, 15th January 2012, Dave Mellor does a great job in organising the event in Shrewsbury and I'd raced this course in December. I was expecting a dry, fast, frozen course but how I was mistaken. When I arrived there were bikes thick with heavy mud - so much for my one bike race plan...
With the muddy conditions well established, it was going to be a tough hour of racing and with inescapable sections of running each lap. I set out at a good tempo and gained a lead on lap one. I rode cautiously on the slippery corners and put the power down on the straights, always aware of the guys behind me fighting it out between themselves. I had good support in the pits and opted to change my bike for a cleaned one most laps. The win was sweet – and it helped make up for the previous weekend’s disappointment.
Til the next post – keep rollin'
LK.
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