Bikey weekend

A couple too many Belgian beers on Friday left me feeling a little less than fresh on Saturday morning but I sometimes find I go pretty well with the old furry-tongue feeling.  Hog Hill was bone dry when we got there in time for the Eastern League's Vet's/Women's race. Boom won the women's race with a comfortable buffer, despite a last lap puncture.

My race saw me involved in a race-long battle with the guys in 8th 9th and 11th with me in 10th. In the end 8th rode away from us but blew up on the last lap with us breathing down his neck on the finish line as 3 of us sprinted for 9th. Again I blew pretty hard at 40mins but managed to maintain some pace til the end. In the end I went so hard I threw up on my bike just after the finish line! It left me feeling pretty rough all of Saturday night, but seeing as I struggled to push deep all of last season I'm happy to have rediscovered the capacity to go that hard. My weight has fallen and I was closing people down on all the long climbs but just lacked the power on the flat sections.

 

 

Photo by John Mullineaux of londoncyclesport.com

Sunday had the London League pencilled in the calendar, also at Hog Hill and we were planning a double header weekend but last minute tickets into the VIP Hospitality on the final stage of the Tour of Britain took priority. We watched most of the ITT from the central reservation outside Horse Guards and then caught the Crit from inside the Skoda enclosure where we had a very nice lunch and hung out with a giant fluffy yeti.

Yesterday, Monday we boosted down to Southampton, the home of Garmin UK to join them on their Ride-Out. This basically involves 500 dealer, prize winners and journos hob-nobbing with Garmin Cervelo riders, trying some hardware and then smashing seven shades of shit out of each other over a 25mile course.
We rode the route at a reasonable lick, got some good training in on some real nice roads and rode the last third or so with Roger Hammond.