Steve seeks some expert help

I found Eddy by mistake. A club mate had entered the Guildford crit and sent an email out asking if anyone else was interested in doing it. When I looked on the BC website it was listed as Cat 3/4, but then also Cat 3 only, so I contacted the organiser, Eddy, for clarification. When Eddy replied to me, he said he could hold a place for me if I got the necessary points to move from 4^th to 3^rd, by race date, he also said he did coaching.

I had been doing about 3 or 4 road races per season, but was never able to keep with the pace changes and always ended up getting dropped from the main group. I needed some focus and it seemed like a good opportunity to make some changes to the way I ride in training.

The date was set and following the recent rainy weather we were greeted with blue skies and warmth on the actual day. We started on the Watt Bike indoor trainer getting some power output numbers and looking at the balance of power delivery for left and right leg. This was very interesting as I hadn’t been on a bike with a proper power meter before.

Following a cup of tea and quick check over the bikes we were off into the hills and quiet lanes for some sessions and words of wisdom. I don’t want to tell you everything we did here as that would spoil it for you, but I will say the drills we did were as hard or harder than a race situation, which of course training should simulate. A short stop for very good coffee at a local farm shop was followed by a blast back to base to review what had been learned and a look over a cheat sheet of race prep/tactics Eddy had prepared for me to take away.

Overall the morning was very enjoyable and Eddy’s knowledge of racing and race scenario’s is very impressive. He was able to talk me through likely situations and advise how I should deal with them. Just talking to him I realised my mental outlook could be as much of my problem when racing as the structure of my training.

I will be putting the sessions into place over the coming weeks and I’m sure I’ll be hearing Eddy shouting “Come on Steve!” in my ear as I grind up my hill rep sessions. You never know, one day in the future, I may hear it as I cross the line with my arms in the air.

Eddy Lewis of Dreadnought Racing can be found at jeddylewis@googlemail.com

Hog Hill 24th May - Team work pays off!

Steph reports on her entry into the Cat 3 ranks, with a little help from some pink team mates...


I've decided to do as many of the Hog Hill Summer Series races as I possibly can, partly to get over my fear of the Hoggenberg and partly to get some good experience in a small field to train for larger races. The last time I went, I was spectacularly dropped, then lapped, and spent the rest of the race avoiding the sympathetic looks from spectators and coming up with excuses as to why I was doing so badly. It wasn't a great experience so tonight I was secretly dreading scaling that hill 16 times. Even worse when the 7 of us lined up on the start my team mates were nowhere to be seen and I resigned myself to another day of hill reps.

We set off and for the first lap the pace was high. Fighting my way up the hill I saw 2 pink-clad ladies, Nicole and new teammate Anna, waiting at the top, and realised that reinforcements had arrived (I later found out that they’d time trialled their way from a nearby station after having their train cancelled). Nicole placed herself right in front of me and I spent the next lap focussing on her cassette and pink QR skewer, working to stay on her wheel. At the top of the hill another team Pink member, Coralie, joined the group. Coralie took up residence as my babysitter and Nicole worked her way through the group.

A few laps in and there was a break of 3 which I simply wasn't strong enough to chase so Nicole held the bunch back. As the laps counted up I noticed that Nicole was working to hold the group back while Coralie was working to keep me with them. Realising what was happening, I started grinning. Then I noticed that I was grinning and thought it was a bit smug, so resumed staring at Coralie's cassette and working to ignore the voice in my head telling me to stop.

There were a few close calls when I took corners too wide and lost her wheel but we managed to get a break on the final lap. With one lap to go, Coralie pushed over the Hoggenberg with me right on her wheel and Nicole yelling for us to go, whilst she held up the others. Coralie did a flat-out 1 lap lead out which set me up for a perfect 4th place, which I unfortunately lost due to going too early on the hill but still managed to secure 5th and move up into 3rd category. Anna, doing only her 3rd race ever, also picked up some points, and joined us at the finishing line with a huge grin on her face.

Watching the team tactics play out during the race was fascinating and it was so rewarding to see both hard work and team work pay off. It was an excellent race and I can't wait to do it again!

2 days of Bedford with Team Pink

Nikki reports on Day 1…

Described on the Scott-Contessa-Epic team website as “4 stages in 2 days, featuring the hardest course in the UK...a great advert for elite level women’s racing and truly tough test of form and fitness”, the Bedford 2-day stage race was always going to be a hard weekend’s racing for Team Pink. Accompanied as always by a faithful, increasingly grease-stained Nellie, our aim for the weekend was to all finish, not to come last (unlike the Essex Giro!), look more pro than we have in the earlier Team Series races (we had cars, spare wheels, turbos and a one-man support crew this time!) and to have a bit of fun.

First up was the Team Time Trial. Having only practiced a very little bit on Saturday morning, we were understandably nervous about how things were going to go, especially when most the teams around us turned out with disc wheels and “sperm-head” helmets, with chats of how they had refined their Team TT technique on various European training camps. Feeling massively underprepared, we rolled out to the start, with Stephen driving our support car close behind. With some minutes to spare, a nervous Helen, our nominated lead-off, thought she’d take the opportunity to practice her start. After nearly falling off her bike for failing to clip in properly, then hacking her chain off her big chain ring, we suggested she quit and just sit quietly. Things actually went a lot better than expected – Kate only did one mad dash off the front (to be swiftly called back), we all stayed together and finished in an impressive sprint, led, a little to my surprise, by me. We ended up being placed 14th beating a couple of teams.

Back at the car park we warmed down on our turbos, feeling very pro, had some lunch, ignoring the various World and Olympic Champions wandering about, and looked at the course for the next stage – the Keysoe 85km road race. With almost 80 girls starting the race, there was little room to move in the bunch, with frequent corners and parked cars littered around the course. After being dropped from the peloton I had a relatively relaxed ride around with about 10 other girls, working well together with some through and off. My other four team mates ended up finishing in the same bunch behind the main group. Shortly into the second lap, a crash occurred in the front third, which they were all behind. Whilst only one member of Team Pink came off their bike, they all got held up and watched as the fast-moving bunch sailed away. They all worked hard to get back on, eventually coming together to form quite a large chasing pack, picking up strays along the way, then dropping some of them, before hitting the final hill sprint hard to gain some seconds on the rest of the bunch.

All in one piece, we regrouped at the cars ready to head to our glamorous hotel – a Travelodge near the Milbrook test circuit for day 2. It was cheap. An excursion to the local pub, with a hobbling Kate cursing her creaking Achilles, proved unsuccessful as they had stopped serving food, so we retired to Kate and Stephen’s room for a very pro dinner of takeaway pizza, chips and dip, and red wine, followed by an early night.

  

Nicole reports on Day 2… 

Day 2 started well, with a hint of sunshine greeting us on pulling back the Travelodge curtains. The 9 hours or so sleep that we managed to get seemed to rejuvenate our legs, and we were able to walk down the stairs without the previous night’s heaviness. The sunshine didn’t last long though – it was cold and grey on arrival to Milbrook, and by the time we had warmed up for the morning’s 2 mile individual time trial, it had started to rain. Nikki was first off for Team Pink. I caught her wheeling back as I was making my way to the start line and asked her how it was. “It was horrible and I hated it!” Ok, great. Her attitude changed somewhat later in the day when we got the results and she proved to be the fastest Team Pink member! We also had our suspicions confirmed that all rowers are mental. On asking Helen if she enjoyed her first time trial, her reply was “I loved it. It was really hard, and it hurt, but then I found I could just push a bit harder and it hurt more.”

We warmed down then replenished our fuel stores with tea and bacon and egg rolls from the burger van. And then it really did start to piss down. With no head-quarters and little shelter, we crowded into the boot of Coralie’s car thinking this was Cyclopark de-ja-vu (see previous blog post). Stephen took a break from his role as Director sportif / soigneur / support vehicle driver / photographer to race in the men’s 2/3/4 race, finishing his first race in tough conditions. We watched as a few boys lost their back wheels in the wet conditions and got a little bit more nervous.

1.30pm finally rolled around and it was time to race. We didn’t bother to warm up – it was too cold and wet, and all we wanted to do was get around and finish the race safely. The course really was a goody, consisting of a 2 mile “speed bowl”, an alpine type climb, followed by a fast decent, straight into a short sharp hill to push over, and a couple of roundabouts to keep everyone honest. If only it was dry. The whole of Team Pink nervously started towards the back of the bunch, and whilst Helen and Kate managed to move up, the rest of us dropped off the back one by one. I just couldn’t make my legs go up the climb at any speed, and lost contact on lap 3. I quite enjoyed the race though, working in a group with some good riders from Surrey League, Brighton Mitre and iCycle.

Helen did outstandingly well to stay in the main bunch for the whole race, world champions / gold medallists and all, with Kate just a couple of minutes behind. Being quite aware of my team mates’ tendencies towards hypothermia, I ushered them from the finish line back to the car to change and revive on tea and chocolate, before packing up our mountain of stuff and hitting the road. I was disappointed to discover that night that I had been omitted from the results of the final race, and was left out of the GC completely!! Despite my absence, Team Pink finished in a respectable 10^th place (I don’t think we would have finished any higher if they had included me), with Helen our highest individual in 30^th. A fantastic weekend, where we achieved all our aims, and learnt just a little bit more about each other. Thanks Team Pink!