Stalling

12 days, 12 days! Just 12 days in to training and I have a problem. Apparently I'm not all that good at setting up my position on a new bike, well, not this one at least. Last time I was talking about being obsessive about my position, perhaps not enough! I began to get some pain in my left knee towards the end of Sunday's first team ride. I was not too concerned to begin with, and thought it would go away. Then yesterday, after barely and hour of riding I was reduced almost to tears it was so painful, I could barely turn the pedals. Fortunately, my good friend Dave was on hand to give me a lift home. After some fastidious tape measure action, I came to the conclusion that the saddle was both too low, and too far forward. Which fitted in with the location of the pain according to what I have read online. The problem is the saddle can't go any further back on the seatpost I have, hopefully my coach, Alan, has another for me. So I'm back on the Fuga for a bit in the meanwhile, which is much nicer to ride being my race bike, but I had gotten really comfy with the bar set up on my training bike which is different. Alas, it'll do for now. Like I say, I'm obsessive!

In other news, apart from this hopefully brief knee hiccup, training is good. I'm like a kid again each time I go out, finding new lanes and farm tracks to ride down. I love it! The weather hasn't been too unkind just yet either, so it's all good. The team met up for the first time on Sunday too, a good ride was had by all. Obviously I let my team mate Josh have the sprint of course, gotta keep the lad happy, he's a bit fragile you know! Had some new faces out on the ride too, which was cool, overall though a slightly slimmed down squad on last year, which I think will be good in the long run. A more tight nit group can only be a more effective force, right?

Continuing on reminiscing about the season that was, brings us to the Dengie Marshes Tour, Hell of the East. This is an epic tour across the flat lands of Essex, not dissimilar to Belgie. Except for the lack of cobbles, now to make up for this an incredibly muddy section of rutted slightly downhill farm track is included. It was often carnage, luckily I avoided crashing or puncturing, but these were fates that befell my team mates! A crash in front of me effectively ended my race by allowing the front 10 riders to ride away from me. My own fault for not being further forward. I came to the last 10km fighting from the bunch for a top 20 finish, together with a few others I broke away from the bunch on the last crossing of the track, but failed to get the top 20, I finished 21st. An awesome race though, most definitely a love/hate matter for all who ride it!

One more weekend before my trip to Ireland saw a largely uneventful race in Oxfordshire, the Thames Velo Spring RR. I had a really heavy week of training leading into it, yet felt ok. I almost helped force a late break on the last lap, but when it came to a bunch sprint I was nowhere. The important thing was the form was coming, but was it coming soon enough for Ireland? Here's some of the muddy aftermath of Dengie!