Sportive, Track Racing and Cyclocross with Max

First up was the Castles and Cathedrals sportive in October. Horrible weather, very windy, 94 racing miles (101 including ride to and from the start), 6300ft climbing. I went away with a front group from the start, and me and another quickly whittled it down to just the two of us. We did approximately 35 miles together into Brecon, but he then dropped me on a horrible 20% climb, that I was ridiculously over geared for. That left me with 30 miles to cycle by myself back to Cardiff. I was on the brink of a bonk for the last 20 miles, and had nothing to give when I was overtaken into 3rd place with 2 miles to go! Still, a third place finish with an overall time of 5.30 for the full distance and a massive baked potato to celebrate.

I've then been doing a number of track sessions with a local team, which culminated in me gaining my indoor velodrome accreditation in November. This means that I can race on the Newport, Manchester and London velodromes. It's essentially a driving test, making sure that you're safe and able to race but it's quite intensive, so we had to pick it up quickly. Despite having done the accreditation, it still feels like a big step up to racing, so I'm planning a few more sessions with the team to learn the race structures/formats before taking the plunge.

And finally, on Sunday just gone, I raced at round 8 of the Welsh Cyclocross league in Pembrey. I've raced CX before, taking third place in a southern counties championship when I was 15, but that was the last time I'd raced! I was really excited to get back into it though, as it's a discipline which really suits my mountain bike background. CX is always a very short, sharp affair - never much longer than an hour, and on a course which is largely flat but constantly causing you to slow down and accelerate, via short hills, sharp corners and obstacles which you have to dismount to get over. The Pembrey course is held over sand dunes, so is quite fast and dry but not massively grippy. It was a record turn out on Sunday with 164 starters - current pros, ex pros, elite, cat 1,2,3,4's and complete novices - they throw you all in together! Magnus Backsted was racing, Ed Laverack (Rapha Condor Sharp) and a couple of others... It was an absolutely blast - the course was brilliant; technical, testing and with only one dismount. The results have just come out, and I finished 48th of 155 finishers - a little further back than I was hoping for, but all things considered - not a terrible result! Next round is on the 14th December, just up the road from here so really looking forward to that.