Blogs
Mon, 18 Apr 2011
Horizon Fitness RT starts the UK racing season
By Sarah Storey - Horizon Fitness Racing Team
With the second race of the UK women’s road racing season being on the popular course in Cheshire and hosted by the fantastic Weaver Valley Cycling Club, when we woke up to clear blue skies and sunshine everyone looked ready and raring to go.
Horizon Fitness Prendas Racing Team had a small but perfectly formed and perfectly co-ordinated team made up of Hannah Rich, Penny Rowson and myself. It was brilliant to be back together again so soon after the team training camp at the Mpire Cycling Centre in Italy and a massive shout out goes to Penny who had landed in London at midnight yet still started the race just 10 hours later! It was also exciting to be racing our new team bikes for the time, the Dolan Hercules, with its custom paint job and we had lots of comments of how good they looked with our new Santini kit design and matching Prendas accessories.
With both Penny and I climbing so well during the camp we knew we had a good chance of attacking the climb, but then with speedy Hannah with us there was always a back up plan if it came down to a bunch gallop and I would revert to lead out with Penny.
We felt confident and with a strong field around us we knew we needed a strong start and so we got to the front from the off and attacked the hill to try and get a split. Several riders were shelled in the first lap and then we managed to lose a few more in the second lap, but just as we were approaching the hill for the third time though disaster struck. A car clipped some riders at the back of the bunch and brought them down heavily.
There’s a section of the Cheshire course where we retrace our steps on the A49 bypass, so dropped riders are in view heading in the other direction. The crash happened just as some dropped riders were being overtaken but bizarrely there was so much space it was all down to lack of driver concentration that the crash happened. The small group of dropped riders were riding well over to the left on the big wide bypass where there is more than enough space for everyone coming in the opposite direction. As the bunch came the other way the elderly driver, who was attempting to pass the dropped riders, drifted onto the wrong side of the road and head on into the riders at the back of the bunch, clipping them with her wing mirror and causing them to crash.
With the race continuing for the time being a second issue was materialising as unbeknown to those of us at the front of the race, the neutral service cars had been dealing with more punctures than expected. At the top of the climb for the 3rd time and with a small break being forced, both Corrine Hall and I punctured in that front group and waited for a long time before a car arrived. Due to all the other punctures they’d run out of wheels! When we checked our tyres the cause of all the punctures soon became clear. We all had the same tacks in our tyres and every other punctured wheel did too. Someone had dropped them in the road, causing almost a quarter of the field to puncture!
The crash and our punctures had all happened within the space of a few minutes, so by the time both Corrine and I had new wheels the race had been neutralised and stopped as the severity of the crash was just being realised.
I felt very lucky to even be back in the race given that the split had been going strong and the bunch were only a short distance back and going very strongly too.
Unfortunately, one of the crashed riders had severely damaged her face and the other, Fern Cotterill had smashed her elbow, which I am told she is having pinned tonight [same night as the race]. It was quite a different situation to the previous women’s race in Windsor, where the race was abandoned because the poor standard of riding in the race had virtually taken out the whole field. This time the racing had been very quick and aggressive and the skill level of the riders up to the sort of standard you would expect of a National Series Race. Having said that though there were still plenty of riders crossing the central white line on the quieter sections of the race and flicking their bikes on the fast corners around the course. Everyone in the race is responsible for being in control of what they are doing and we don’t want to see unnecessary flicks and riders trying to push into small gaps in the bunch and then not being able to hold their line and wobbling around. Cheshire is not a particularly technical circuit with all but the last bend into the finish being sweeping and easy to pedal round, so it’s not good to see less experienced riders flicking out as if they are taking a hair pin. Anyone who isn’t sure should follow the more experienced riders in front, because if they are getting round then so are you.
With so many of the women’s races being oversubscribed this year, it seems a good time to address the possibility of splitting the fields as happens in the men’s races. Having E,1,2 races then 2,3,4 races could solve the problem of the less experienced riders being unable to handle their bikes at the higher speeds ridden by the E, 1, 2 women. It has also been suggested that perhaps the women’s races with smaller fields should receive reduced, or in some cases no, licence points because it’s easy to accrue the points without the experience and perhaps become a 2nd category rider without the necessary skills for cornering. No one wants to exclude anyone from racing, but it’s only in women’s fields where the licence levels aren’t split. If the newer riders weren’t subjected to such a baptism of fire in the fast races with lots of E, 1, 2’s then they would perhaps gain in confidence and skill and help push the standard forward even further.
That’s perhaps a debate for another day and as we sat for around 45 minutes waiting for the race restart we were hoping no one had been too badly injured.
With the restart shortening the race to just 6 laps it was more like a Crit and try as we might with an awesome attack up the climb on the first lap of the restart by Penny and some good pulling on the front by Hannah we didn’t manage to get ourselves into a break. Plenty of other riders were trying to get off the front, Hannah Barnes of Motorpoint came steaming up the outside after the climb and we thought we’d split it, but the bunch was strong all race and the finish was looking more and more like a bunch sprint.
Plan B for Horizon Fitness Prendas RT then and Hannah became our protected rider and I took us to the front and kept the pace as high as I could to make sure we got round the last corner first. After the corner there’s less then 500m to the finish line which is halfway up the climb. I went full gas into the corner and kicked out as hard as I could for as long as possible with the aim of dropping both Penny and Hannah off as the road kicked up even more sharply. Just as I thought I couldn’t push any further Penny came round and took Hannah higher up the hill and it was a brilliant 2nd placed finish for Hannah. The second year in a row the Horizon Fitness Prendas RT have taken second spot in this race.
Motorpoint had the winning rider in Lucy Garner who just got round Hannah in the closing stages, but it was an awesome team performance after a heavy training camp in the previous two weeks and we were chuffed to see Penny hang on for 9th place too.
Despite the problems in the race, none of which could have been planned for, the race was as ever brilliantly run by Weaver Valley with lots of brilliant volunteers marshalling on all junctions of the course. There’s nothing more reassuring for a rider than seeing the marshals standing in the road and waving the race through. A big thanks to them once again and a speedy recovery to those who came down.
On a personal note I was chuffed to be testing the road racing legs again after the long winter on the track. I’d made the weekend into my own mini stage race as I also raced my first Time Trial of the season on a local 25 mile course, the day before heading to Cheshire Classic. It was a good weekend for me, as not only did I feel like I was flying before the race got stopped at Cheshire Classic, my 57m 4s on the 25 mile TT, was a personal best for that particular course by 1 minute 45 seconds and also earned me my first top 10 placing in a men’s field at an Open Time Trial event.
With Easter weekend being all about Time Trialling this week will see me spending a bit more time on the tri-bars.
More from me later, hope you enjoy the Bank Holiday!
Sarah x
For more information on the Horizon Fitness Racing Team, visit www.onthedrops.com.