Jamie Walker recently was promoted to a Cat 3 rider
and was keen to keep up his racing skills, so he headed to Maldon in Essex for
the Lea Valley Road Race on May 10th :
Yesterday I entered the Lea Valley Road Race, an 87mile race around Maldon
in Essex, and this being my first race since promotion to Cat 3. I
arrived late, with just 10 minutes to get the bike out the car, sign on
and get myself together, no time to warm up or anything.
I get to the start line pass my spare bottle to my GF
incase I need it so she can pass it to me when I go past her. The route was a
12ish mile loop, which appeared to have plenty of descents till the finish
line. I start the race near the back, trying to sit on a wheel. Seeing as
I never warmed up I thought I'd break into it slowly and get the HR
up gradually, I thought road races were a little more subdued
that crits, which I have only ridden since I started racing, but I
was wrong.
I could have been right, but I was racing against Elite riders
and pro's, in fact and the race had gone straight off to a 28mph ride
! After the first descent I was on the front, and was leading out
Rapha Condor and Pinnerello RT, to then switch round and I was
following the wheel of Rapha rider, Matt Seaton, who, incidentally,
wasn't riding a Condor frame.
The ride carries on for another 3 miles till we hit the first
and only hill on the section, a kilo long 7-14-7% climb up to the finish
line, I get dropped half way up and for the next 40 miles I am riding on my
own, one other rider dropped with me but I dropped him within 3 miles, he was
tired already as he was racing TT the day before against Dr Hutch.
40 miles goes by and the lead group finally catch me, I hang
onto the back of them for a mile and a half, and watch them trying to outfox
each other this early in the race, and I can say it's more interesting and
exciting than actually watching it from the front room. I let the lead group go
and was told by the race organiser to pull out, which I'm happy to do as I
could feel my energy levels slowly diminishing.
I decide to walk half way to the finish line up the hill, but
with getting off the bike I think I trapped a tendon or something as walking
was harder than the race itself. A great day's racing by all that competed
and myself included. I wasn't expecting anything from today as a result, and
was only in it for the experience before this weekend's race, which is only a
cat 3/4 race and only over 50 miles, so should be easier on myself. The
organisers and the Marshalls did a superb job and all credit should go to those
that gave up their sunbathing time to help out.
