Been a little quiet recently.

Another pretty frustrating weekends racing not only for me but for the rest of my sigma team mates I imagine as well.

Was riding at the Rutland - Melton Cicleclassic and predictably I punctured. Strangely it happened on a main road section, the front wheel just went down (perhaps picking up something in the 1st off road section i had just got through). Unfortunately when I punctured the team car was miles off busy trying to overtake dropped riders so by the time it caught up I had no chance of getting back to the main group as was stuck with a group of dropped riders.

Just about everyone else in the Sigma team had their chances scuppered by untimely punctures, this wasn't helped much with the team car being drawn last in the convoy.

Pretty pissed off as fitness had actually felt pretty good going into it....

Had ridden a hard ride round Richmond park on my road bike as part of the bikeradar "3 lap challenge "on the wednesday before. I had averaged 25 mph for it on my road bike which was a new PB (in terms of power and time).

This had come off the back of a really hard week for me straight after the Thames Velo, which had left me feeling pretty shattered for a couple of days on the monday / tuesday last week. This "hard week" involved riding "tempo" (in watts terms 300+) for 3.5 hours on the tuesday after the thames velo race. I then did 2.5 hours followed by riding a local clubs 10 mile TT on my road bike (which I won) the day after that. I followed this with 6 x 5 minute intervals done flat out as part of a longish ride a couple of days after that. Tiring stuff!

With the next lot of races coming over the next weeks I just need to find some belief from somewhere that I can get a decent result in these major races to make all this effort feel worthwhile.

Next weekend is the Chas Messenger, a bit more local and hopefully wont be quite so unpredictable, this race also has a short flatish TT so I'd better dig my lo-pro bike out and fix it.

Good weekend for Sigma

Good weekend for the sigma team with 3 victories in the form of Dan Duguid @ hillingdon, a three up time trial by myself, Steve Golla and Wouter, and today by Gary Dodd who sprinted away from his breakaway companions to take a victory at the Thames Velo Road Race against a top quality field.

Antelope RT 3 up TTT

Dry conditions greeted all the competitors for that 50km 3 up team time trial promoted by Antelope RT. Riding for the Sigma team was myself (Andrew), and Steve and Wouter who have both been in hot form against the clock with time trial victories in the last couple of weeks. With both my companions being somewhat time trial specialists (Wouter finishing 2nd at the BTTC (Espoirs) and Steve 7th overall in the highly prized best all rounder competition last year) I was always going to be in for a hard day. They also both came geared up on full TT set ups and I put myself at a further bit of a disadvantage beforehand by riding a conventional spoked wheel. Five minutes in these two had already put me deep into the pain zone! When early into the second lap my tri bars came loose (hanging on by the gear cables), this meant Wouter and Steve rode the second lap pretty much as a 2up with me hanging on behind with my now useless tri bars busy trying not to get them caught in my front wheel. Despite losing some of the advantage we'd built up over the first lap we held on for a good victory beating some of the quickest teams in the country and narrowly missing out on the course record by about 20 seconds. As I am sure you can gather from my report I can take little credit in this win, and in this kind of form both my companions are sure to go well whenever they race against the clock.

1 Sigma Sport 01:06:16

2 Shorter Rochford RT 01:06:28

3 Arctic Premier 01:08:16

Today at the Thames Velo road race was a difficult one both of the racing and also in terms of getting the clothing right as we enjoyed sunshine, rain and hail throughout the 75 miles of racing.

I put in lots of silly little digs to try and get into a break, and in the process tired myself out a fair bit for when the crucial point of the race came. Team mate Gary Dodd however stormed to a great win from a break group of about 9 that started the sprint with only a 50m advantage from the main group. In a dicey sprint I got switched by the Bean Pole again and also today by his team mate all within the space of a few metres, again there was no need for it as they were both sprinting with a clear road ahead of them, very aggressive / dangerous sprinting and probably wont be long before they really hurt themselves or someone else again with ridiculous moves like that!

Time to let the legs recover

Another long weekend spent up north with some moderate success finishing 16th at the tour of the reservoir. Unfortunately half the Sigma team including Matt remained out of action with a flu like bug that struck at the girvan, and Alex Wise was the only other Sigma finisher in a tough race.

My legs are definately in need of a little rest now. The finish to the reservoir was one that I had quite fancied i.e. a steep uphill finish, unfortunately I cramped up badly with about 4 miles to go and went from about 4th wheel in the chase group all the way to the back (and was lucky not to drop off it completely). I drank half a bottle of water and gritted my teeth on the downhill run-in to the finish and that helped ease the cramp, but meant I started the climb from right on the back of a 16 man group, and so could only manage to finish 4th out of the group.

So, as I said legs are feeling a bit sore post race. I got given a great sports massage yesterday from my work colleague (Cat) which has helped ease some of the tension in my legs but with no races entered for a few weeks (as not many elite races within travelling distance in April) i'll be able to get some good recovery in and hopefully start racing again with fresh legs.

Other things i'm looking at doing over the next month is losing a little bit of weight. I was about 72kg in late January but with the cold spell and less time / energy for training due to all the racing i've been doing i've let it creep up a few kilos. Means i might start even eating healthily? Thats the plan anyway..

Hopefully now its British summer time the longer evenings, and warmer weather? will also mean I'll be able to get a few more miles in. Yesterday evening was really great was out for a short recovery ride in shorts and a short sleeve jersey.