I am pretty new to this racing lark and had planned to have a bash at the British Masters racing series in 2020. I did one road race in March 2020 but then the Covid restrictions came in so all was deferred to this year. I’ve trained hard and am in decent shape but how would I do in a race with a load of gnarly experienced veterans?
The race was 44 miles and about 2.5 laps of a popular "sporting" TT course starting in Welland near Malvern. There were two races, starting 5 minutes apart and both restricted to 40 riders max. My race was the British Masters Cat E (age 60-65) and women and race 2 was all the older categories.
I was up at 6.15 a.m. and it was then fairly chilly at 9 degrees but the temperature climbed as I drove down the M5 and it was around 15 degrees and pleasant when I arrived with bright blue skies.
I signed on, got ready and headed off to warm up for 25 minutes or so. I felt good but got a bit concerned looking over to the hills as it looked very grey in the sky. Was that rain in the distance or sun haze? Luckily it was the latter which was a relief. I had done a few decent efforts in the warmup as I have a tendency to under warmup probably due to a fear that it will take my energy away from the race itself.
We lined up and listened to the briefing. Mike Amery the organiser explained that we would have over 4 miles of neutralised riding behind the lead car so people could re-acquaint themselves with fast bunch/race riding which seemed like a smart idea.
The support motorbikes set off and then we were away. It was great to finally be back road racing on the roads.
In the few races I’ve done in the last couple of years, I have found that I have steadily slipped back in the bunch and found myself near the back which then leads to getting dropped or missing the breaks. This time, I was determined to stay near the front and not to miss any breaks.
I was more assertive in the neutralised session and as the lead car pulled away, I was in the first five riders and holding station. My coach, Roy, had advised me not to just follow wheels, but to constantly look for gaps and to keep moving forwards. “In a race, if you’re not going forward, you’re going backwards”.
I stayed near the front for most of the first lap which did entail quite a few hard efforts to chase people down. After another surge near the end of lap 1, I was blowing hard and wondered how I’d keep this up for 45 miles. I dropped slowly towards the back of the pack and then realised that I’d recovered. This was a lesson I needed to internalise – that even when I feel bushed, I can recover reasonably quickly so just keep going.
I was then pleased how I found ways to work back to the front in lap 2 without burning too many matches.
The race had become very stop/start. Two guys #4 and #28 were controlling the front and they were slowing things down and then jumping off the front. They weren’t showing as being from the same club but I saw they were sat together after the race so presumably they were working together. Despite this, most of the pack was still all together probably because there weren’t any significant hills to create the breaks.
The final lap was similar – I fell near the back then jumped up to the first 5. With 4 miles to go, I was in the lead for a while – I wondered if #28 was slowing the race down for #4 who was a bigger guy who seemed to like efforts then recovery and looked like he could sprint well. I stayed up front probably too long and pushed and also chased down too many of the jumps. When a third attack went off (after me chasing the first two) I couldn’t respond and much of the pack went past me.
Now there was only about 2 miles to go and the pace was up. It was now hard to get near the front safely. It was frustrating as I had recovered enough to be able to sprint but as we hit the last few hundred metres there was just no place to go without going into the oncoming lane – with cars approaching this was clearly not wise so I didn’t.
A pretty big pack finished all together and I finished 23rd in the pack. I didn’t get the chance to try my sprint out which was a shame.
My target had been to practice moving up in the pack and to finish in the main pack. I achieved both of these and if I’d been a bit more canny, I could have had a better finish result – but I am pleased and enjoyed the race and think I learned a lot.
My average power for the 1hr 40 min race was 217W with a Normalised Power of 266W and my Strava file is here https://www.strava.com/activities/5383306294
..... On to the next one.
No event photos yet. Hopefully some to upload later.