Back on the road this week I discovered another excellent little farm track nearby to keep me entertained this winter, it literally goes on for ages! I am really just a kid sometimes, and there is something quite comical about riding a bike designed to speed along pristine tarmac along gravelly, muddy and potholed lanes that are less than 3 meters wide! For one, there are no cars about. Even better, you traverse across fields and the like without any recognisable feature in sight most of the time, they are in many ways just like being in Belgium. Which is a thought that is never far from my mind. I have been trying to get my two idiosyncratic team mates organised for a trip to our house next year, just for a little recce. That said, getting these two to say yes to being in the same place at the same time is quite a challenge. I'm beginning to think they might not like each other! Of course I jest, though at this rate the first we see of the house will be the day we move in properly!!
In other disappointing news, I found out the address for the house this week, 18 Churchilllaan, Waregem. So I'm going to live in the heartland of cycling, and in effect I'm living on Winston's own lane! An example of what I was hoping for perhaps can be found just at the end of the road, Jan Bouckaertstraat, now that's much more like it! Still, if you have a look, Waregem seems to be a really cool place, I cannot wait to see it for myself.
Last time in my recapping of 2009, I ended on the eve of my trip to Ireland. I could write for hours about this experience, of course no one would actually read it though! So I set of with my 5 companions, Simon McNamara, Steve Saunders, Roger Smith, John Heaton-Armstrong and our team leader the evergreen Gary Dodd. After one of the roughest ferry crossings I hope ever to have to endure, and countless hours in the car, we arrived at our accommodation. A beautiful farmhouse just outside the race town of Killorglin, Kerry. Our generous host, John Magner, a former rider himself with an impressive collection of trophies as well as an incredibly strong accent! This was a Surrey Cycle Racing League composite team, as such we were in the white and grey jerseys as you see above.
There were 4 stages, over 4 days. The first afternoons racing saw my lack of experience at this level cost me over a minute. Coming to the final climb I was too far back, as a result missed the split which both Gary and Steve made, and arrived at the finish 15th of 17 U23 riders. I'd had the idea of being in contention for this classement... haha! The next day saw us cross the epic Connor Pass around halfway through the stage. The whole peloton was nervous, you could sense it, as it was a large group came to the final 20km chasing a rapidly disintegrating break away. Eventually we came to the line to sprint for around 8/9th. The run in was fast, with just one tight right hander, I was positioned well and lined up to seriously contest for a top 1o. Until that is, one of the Irish academy lads decided to cut me up through the corner. I had 3 options, hop a kerb at 55km/h, ride into him and likely bring most of the bunch down, or brake. I chose the later since my bunny hoping just ain't that great! As a result I placed 25th, I was fuming.
The next day was a slightly shorter stage, but the wind was up, big time. This was only really the second time I have been put in the position of having to ride echelons in a race. I learnt the hard way. Essentially, I just about survived the crosswinds, but the damage was done and I ended up getting dropped on the penultimate climb, with about 35km to go. Watching the convoy just slip out of my grasp was one of the more hard hitting learning curves of this year. I eventually made the finish just over 12 minutes down on the winner, and over 10 minutes down on the others. I felt humiliated. From then on, learning how to ride the cross winds became a major part of my development. Later on in the year, in Belgium, I had just about worked it out. The final stage saw any thoughts I had of doing anything special were ruled out by my not being party to the deal that was done that saw a break go that was of no danger to the GC men. I made the finish circuits ideally placed, 6th wheel, just behind the yellow jersey and his team. Ultimately though, I knew there wasn't a great deal of point in working so hard to stay up front and go for 15th place. My legs were already on the way home. I drifted back, got held up briefly by a crash on the last lap, but it mattered little. I remained 54th on GC, moving to 17'59 from the winner, a number not without significance... it was the year Arthur Guinness signed the lease to St. James Gate.
Only now can I begin to appreciate the things I learnt that weekend, and for the experience I must express my gratitude to the Surrey League, in particular Keith Butler for giving me the opportunity. The form this race provided me with did not go unused, the season was about to pick up...
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