"situated on a high plateau adjacent to the A515, two miles south of Ashbourne, Derbyshire. The Second World War runway was transformed into Darley Moor Racetrack holding regular events since 1965 for motorbike and more recently cycle racing.
It is about 90 minutes drive for me and I arrived in good time, signed in and got my race numbers. The C,D race was on so I watched a bit of that. The first thing that hit home was how exposed and windy it was. It also felt chilly. The temp on my car dash had dropped by 2 degrees as I got closer to the circuit, presumably due to being at 800 feet.
I got kitted up and did a bit of a warmup on the approach drive. This was not easy due to the harsh speed bumps and I didn't really fancy the A515. I must find a turbo setup that I can bring for warming up which doesn't involve taking the rear wheel off.
When the C,D race finished I was able to finish off my warming up on the track. I'd not been there before, even in my motorbike racing days, so I was trying to "learn" the circuit quickly.
The left hander was quite a fun one in that you could take it pretty fast, but watching out for others chopping in. Then came a slight but impactful gradient and a chicane up to the finish, into that very strong wind.
We lined up. There were 42 on the start list but I didn't count to see if everyone had made it. A quick briefing and then a one lap rolling start which I quite like. Then we were off.
I have done a lot of mileage in prep for this season but very little intensity yet, so I was interested to see how I'd cope with the peaky nature of racing, especially a relatively short (90 minutes) one.
Roy had advised me not to do any hero turns and to try and use this as an exercise to practice my sprint at the end of the race. I tried to follow this advice but my natural instinct is to be close to the front and then I get dragged into chasing the moves. I resisted this as much as I could, trying to be the 2nd or 3rd chaser rather than leading them. Then about 23 minutes in, a couple of guys went off the front who I knew often made the break. I had to really work to catch them, which I did and then they waved me through as we approached the top of the home straight. I was cooked.
This break didn't last and we were absorbed back in. I took this as a sign to get away from the front and hang out nearer the back. In reality I was also worried whether I'd recover.
If any of you know XERT, you can see my purple line around 23 minutes meeting my power output line - which basically means I've used up all my available high intensity energy reserve. At the time, I didn't need any software to tell me that!
I was pleased that I managed to recover in the pack and feel okay a bit later on.
During this period, a group of 3 went off the front, including the 2 guys I'd chased earlier. After a while, these 2 came back to the pack but Nick Giles stayed away. Those who know Nick, will be aware that once he is away, he often stays away and TT's to a solo win and that is exactly what he did this time.
Feeling recovered, I moved near the front again and was in the first 5 most of the time. With 2 laps to go, I was in 3rd place and Nick Giles came past me. I didn't know he had got away and was lapping us. I jumped on his tail, assuming he was making a break and sat with him to the line, where he stopped. Being a bit dense, I still didn't clock that he was a lap ahead and had therefore just won, whilst the rest of us had a lap to go.
There was a regroup and I was in second (third) place most of the way around the final lap. Then my poor racecraft kicked in. I was still in second (third) place behind a guy who had a great engine and led a lot of the race, but he didn't have much kick. The pack came around me, I think as we came out of the bend but I couldn't get into their line or past the guy in front, so I got pushed to the back of what remained of the pack. I did think about barging in left but thought it was too dangerous.
Once I got some clear space I could put down what power I had left and started re-passing people but it was too little far too late and I crossed the line in 19th place - a very disappointing result.
My power numbers were okay. The average power was nothing to write home about but my NP was 270W for the 91 minutes of the race which is not bad (Training Peaks summary below.)
So looking for positives;
- my power was reasonable
- I went very deep (once) and recovered okay
- my bike handling was not bad
It was an enjoyable event which was friendly and very well organised, I'll look forward to the event next year. Hopefully I'll learn from this race, but racecraft seems to be taking me too long to absorb.
Below are some pics from the event. (c) mysoigneurlife