A last minute call up

Friday afternoon 4pm following some last minute negotiations my plans for the weekend undertook a big change.

Originally I was down to ride the Jock Wadley race, but with Rob (Sharman) and Neil (Swithenbank) out of action for the Bikeline I was called up as a late replacement to help strengthen the squad for the seasons first premier. Was a bit of a mission to organise everything so last minute and am indebted to many people, particularly Cat and Andrew from the Pavillion who gave up there Saturday afternoons so that I might have some fun in Wales.

And so after very little sleep on friday night I set off to make the 4 hour drive up to North Wales, this was after being woken up by a noisy neighbour at 4am which meant I left even earlier than planned and so I was actually one of the first to arrive.

Met up with the rest of the team again and then after much fussing with a kit bag filled to the brim with clothes (i'd packed for all weathers not knowing what to expect) got myself out to warm up for the first stage a short 1 mile prologue.

OUCH! A real lung opener. Up a drag and into a nasty headwind I nearly stalled halfway up when started to run out of steam and was hit by a gust. Was wrenching the pedals a bit out of the saddle. Not at all like stage winner Wilkinson (SIS) who seemed to be firmly seated and piling out the power!

I finished 17th and came away with a new power pb for 3 minutes, and was temporarily at least first sigma on GC. As reward for this Matt adopted role of domestique and quickly repinned my numbers on my jersey for me so that I didn't have to haul my own mini parachutes around with me. Good tip gained = use the pin to grab as much of the number as possible to keep it snug, and never only use 4 pins for the corners.

The afternoons stage was short, rapid and made extremely dangerous by howling cross winds and pretty heavy traffic on the course. Matt with both his experience and talent was revelling in these conditions and managed to get into most decisive break in terms of the general classification of the whole weekend. Me on the other hand I was happy to finish the stage in one piece, me and fellow South East racer Rob Enslin (awcycles) seemed equally shellshocked as we crossed the line at the rear end of a group that had shelled out 20 in the last lap with some riders apparently deliberately sitting up to make gaps appear.

Saturday evening was spent at the Stephens family house and included refuelling on pasta and pizza Fondant fancies and a delicious lemon sponge (all expertly dished up by Chef Matt) and entertainment in the form of Indiana Jones (chosen by Matts young lad Josh). Matt showed me his torture (turbo) room which Andrea (Matts wife) reassures us is definately audible from the living room.

Sunday felt a lot better after a good nights kip. The first 2 hours were spent with the whole of the Rapha team setting a fast pace on the front. This provided everyone else in the pack with a recovery ride interspersed with the odd uncomfortable dip into the red as crosswinds and hills gave rapha opportunities to try and split the main group.

It looked like it was gonna come down to the 10 minute climb with 40k to ride to split things up. Up that climb me, James and Matt were all fortunately excellently placed at the bottom and got rode well enough to all get into the front group.

Dan, Alex and Mike were a bit caught out as the race was on over the first steep half of the climb. In good company though as top riders such as Malcolm Elliott and Kristian House were with them. Apparently on the 80 km/h descent off the hill Dan says he saw Elliott riding with just one hand on the bars and taking the opportunity to have a pee whilst everyone else was gripping their handlebars so tight they were leaving nail marks in their bar tape.

On the run in to the finish, I felt good and helped keep the pace up to prevent anyone else getting back to the group. At the finish Matt delivered another great result for the team 4th for the stage (to match his from the saturday afternoon) and also finished in 6th in the overall.

I was pleased to have finished in 12th, which means my first premier points! This was only my second race at this level and feel I was can be competitive at the end of the race, and hope I have a bit more to get out of myself with better preperation.

James was also well placed overall just out the points in 21st. However was an all round good performance for the whole Sigma team who can all take positives from their rides. It was great for me to get an opportunity to ride with such a slick outfit but more importantly was that we all seemed to really enjoy the weekend. My weekend was finished off with what can only be described as a bucket full of hot chocolate at costa coffee so big I needed help lifting it off the tray.