10 Under the Ben

I haven’t written a report for a while – mainly because there hasn’t been a lot to write about for my last few events. For example:

Fred Whitton – Punctured descending Kirkstone which resulted in a lonely ride!
Keswick National Trailquests – Man flu so had to miss both events.
Ruthin Merida – Broken rear derailleur so had to pull out.

Surely my luck had to change.

The next event on our race schedule was the 10 under the Ben – A fantastic event just outside Fort William where approximately 1000 riders test their endurance by seeing how many laps of a very demanding 10 mile course they can complete in 10 hours. Riders can compete as solo, pairs, trios or quads. Both Andy and I competed in it last year as solo riders, which proved to be one of the hardest events either of us had done. The heat was intense, our pacing strategy was flawed and our bodies were punished. After completing 10 laps we were all for giving up cycling. Strangely enough though, after a good nights sleep and a fry up the next morning there was talk of returning in 2008 for another crack!

Sure enough it was factored into our Trans Alp training and we entered as solo riders again. During the week leading up to the event, for some reason I suddenly decided that riding the event solo was a bad idea. Ten hours of beasting ourselves probably wouldn’t be the best thing for us at this stage and would take a long time to recover from. Perhaps riding as a pair would be better – only 5 hours of pain and it’s just like doing 6 long intervals. Andy wasn’t convinced as he thought it was a soft option (always one to take on the option with most suffering!) but I managed to talk him round and we changed our entry to the pairs category.

The day was reminiscent of 2007 – hot and still but this year even drier. I took the first lap, which involved an extra loop to split the riders up. I got a good start and was with the top 5 as we started the main circuit. Two miles later I ‘burped’ some air out of my tubeless tyre, which shortly after rolled off my rim on a corner. I couldn’t believe it – not more bad luck! I frantically stuck a tube in and tried to make up as much lost time as possible. I completed my lap in a disappointing time and handed over to Andy to start clawing back places. As the laps passed by we rode well and put in consistent laps. Other teams were tiring apart from the leaders who set a blistering pace. By about lap 9 we had moved to second place and were still going strong. However, on lap 10 misfortune passed on to Andy and he was also cursed with a blow out. After sticking a tube in, he then snapped the head off the valve when frantically pumping it up. After much faffing, a typical 52 min lap tuned into a 65 min lap and we had moved to 3rd place. We chased hard but with only 2 laps more we couldn’t reel second place back in and finished in 3rd place. Overall, a pleasing result, and some great training prior to the Trans Alp. Next event – Mountain Mayhem.

grass track

bank holiday weekend was spent pursuing another cycling interest, grass track, on sunday the action was at bitts park in carlisle with the womens national 400m championships, and the mens 800m series, with other events. the 800m was a success for me coming second in my heat to former national champion ben elliott although with two going through to the final i was happy with this. the result was repeated in the final with myself and ben elliot riding away from the rest of the field, and i was beat in the sprint. the next event was the 500m scratch race, this proved too short a distance for me to be able to cope with and finished 3rd in my heat failing to make the final. event 3 was the 1500m in which i won my heat by a fair distance, this was repeated in the final, with me winning the heat in a sprint finish. confidence riding high from the win i entered the 5000m a bit too enthusiastically and eventually blew up with 3 laps to go, lesson learned from spending far too much time on the front i decided to sit in on the devil and ended up pushed to the back of the field where i was beaten in a few laps and taken out.

mondays racing at richmond for me didnt involve the 400m as this wasnt really my distance, instead i decided to focus on the national 8000m series, after an incredibly fast and hard race due to the excellent track the group split, with 5 riders breaking away, i was left on my own to ride round, after chasing hard for several laps i realised catching them was impossible and settled to keeping the chasing riders at a safe distance, eventually finishing 6th and leaving me confident about the national championships in a few weeks time, after missing the northwest road champs due to illness/work commitments im itching to get back to road racing, im sick of going round in circles.....

Wallace Hill Road Race

This weekend I went up to Ayrshire to take part in the Wallace Hill Road Race, one of the Women's National Series events. After my warm up I was coughing so much some of the other competitors were looking slightly worried, and asking me if I was okay...'I'm fine, in fact, a good hard race is going to be the best thing for me', was perhaps not the truth, but what I needed to be telling myself.

The field was pretty small for a National Series event, with the majority of girls not wanting to travel that far north, so just over 20 riders lined up to race. After an extremely long neutralised section due to a road traffic accident where we should have been starting the race got off to a start.

Everything was going well until one of the decents (it was a pretty hilly course), where I shifted into the big ring and my chain came off, and wedged itself nicely so I couldn't pedal in either direction to get it unstuck. With this sorted a long chase ensued to get back onto the bunch, however I was dropped shortly after getting back on. I rode for a while with another rider who had been dropped, then I dropped her and chased onto another rider who I rode with for the rest of the race.

I actually had no idea what was going on during the race, because we ended up being taken off the loop to finish, there wasn't a lap board, and the circuit was pretty long, there were only about four laps (I think), but we kept arriving at the same junctions from different directions. It was fairly enjoyable, once we realised we weren't going to be able to chase back onto the bunch we road steadily the whole way - and the weather was really good!

I ended up with 14th place, some miles in my legs and 9 national points to my name, which is the most I could really have expected with this lurgy have dragged me down for the last month.

Season Off to a Poor Start

Having not posted for a while I thought it was time I gave an update of how things are going this season. After waiting until the end of April for my first road race, I was hit by a cold two days before, but I rode anyway and was pretty pleased with my time trial result, although dissapointed with my result in the road race, having to drop out after four laps, deciding it was better to pull out than tool around in the rain after being dropped.

Since then I have had to dissapointedly turn down rides in the Bedford 2 Day Women's Stage Race, which was gutting, with an awesome field to race against and some really tough looking courses it would have been good, and in the Olveston Road Race, one of the women's national series. Unfortunately my cold turned into a chest infection which has dragged on for the last three weeks, and I'm still not fully over it. I do feel I am getting back to where I was though, time trialling tonight on Bassenthwaite I felt as though I was definately not up to scatch in the lung department, but my legs felt really strong (even if, or perhaps because they resemble the legs of a man...).

My first race back is going to be this weekend, the Wallace Hill Women's National Series event in Ayrshire. Hopefully I'll be back on form by then, and 'the black lung' as I have christened it will have retreated.

Well done to everyone for some awesome results in the Fred Whitton, very impressive!

Fred Whitton Results for Keswick Bikes

3rd. Ben Bardsley - 5:53:55

11th. Andrew Wrigley - 6:12:07

18th. Chris Hope - 6:23:19

20th. Richard Houghton - 6:23:40

181st (3rd Lady). Cheryl Frost - 7:26:09

510th. Philip Malcolm - 8:46:40

Aughton road race

this weekend i travelled down to aughton near lancaster, my intention was to do the stan robson trophy in the north east but due to not feeling 100% i decided a 3/4 cat race was a better choice.
driving down the weather looked ominous, with thunder and lightning on the m6 and heavy rain at the HQ. it was shaping up to be a pretty good race. after my win the previous weekend i was a marked man and throughout the race any attempt to break away on my own or any break i was involved in seemed to get chased down pretty quickly, after doing this for several laps and being left on my own to chase breaks i decided to leave a break of 2 riders up the road. after which the group seemed to settle and ride steadily towards the finish, the finish line was at the top of a climb and after fighting my way through several lune valley riders desperate to block me i managed to win the bunch sprint taking 3rd overall and the last few points needed to gain my 2nd cat licence.

next weekend its off to do the fred whitton, followed by a well earned week off racing then back to the campaign chasing points again, i think the competition will get a little tougher from now on, i also promised myself i would start time trialling, but it can wait....... for now im hooked on road racing.

Recent Race Results

It's been a busy few weeks with revision for GCSE's, weekday and weekend races, and the chest infection I managed to picked up around four weeks ago! I decided after 2 weeks of struggling to recover from my training and racing that a trip to the doctors was needed, and of course the doctor put it straight and simple..."Yes, you have a chest infection". Antibiotics where perscribed and after a few days off the bike, I was feeling fit again and ready to train, even if it had taken some of my zip away.

With VC Cumbria holding there weekly club time trials on a tuesday night, I am now managing to get a god few racing miles in my legs. Last Tuesday (not yesterday) the event was the Keswick 10. Still recovering from my chest infection, I managed to do a 24.04 which was quite disaopointing realy but i was happy to be able to race again! Ali managed to clock a superb 21.55, winning the event!

The day after (wednesday), Alii and I headed up to Carlisle to do the 2-up 25 held by bordercity wheelers. After a nice warm-up in cold, windy conditions, we headed to the start. My legs felt terrible on the out leg, so ali was doing long turns to help me recover. After the turn howverer, i was starting to feel much better and started to pull for longer to try and help Ali recover. We clocked a 59.19 over the undulating course. A respectable time considering the conditions and the fact it was out first time racing together!

The weekend was a trip to the isle of man for me, as the isle of man international youth tour was taking place. The friday night was a 1.5km prologue, in which i managed a 1.57mins, placinf me around 27th place. Saturday was off to the hills for the road race. 45km of racing later, and with legs some what numb, i was in 22nd overall. I was extremly pleased today as, alothough I was dropped from the main bunch, I rode strongly and could realy feel my form coming back after my chest infection. Sunday was a circuit race by the sea front. It rained hard, which made racing very skittish and nervous. I had a good race, finishing in the bunch and keeping my 22nd place overall out of 87riders!

with the whitton coming up next sunday, i decided to make the most of the time i had on the island and try and get in a long ride on the monday. This however, had to be cut short as my legs where screaming! what was going to be an 80mie ride was finished at a respectable 60 hilly miles, very tired and very hungry!

Of course this left me feeling abit fatigued for the next VC cumbria club time trial yesterday. a 25mile time trial from Cockermouth-Keswick-Cockermouth. the night was perfect, and with a good 40min warm-up i was ready. Tonight i was going to break the hour. And how i did! crossing the finish line, i had clocked a 58.41. Half dead, I was over the moon! i had managed to knock over 2 mins off my previos best time for 25miles.

lets hope the season just keeps getting better from here on in!

And congratulations to Dave who's form seems to be coming through very well! 2nd cat licence seems only a stones throw away pal!