Fear not people, I've packed the shin warmers away for the time being. Yesterday I did some real racing again and it was goooood. I was very lucky to get treated to a guest ride by Justin Hoy and the Felt-Colbornes-Hargroves guys and it was a really nice setup and team atmosphere. I've rather missed road racing and all its intricacies; it's been far too long. Whenever I come back to England mid season I initially enjoy the break from the routine but eventually realise that there's a reason I race bikes week in, week out - because I chuffing love it!
Having a laugh in the Fens
I did the Tour of the Fens yesterday which was a proper big boys race; 200km is not to be sniffed at, even if the biggest climb was over a river (I'm not joking)! An hour and a half in and the UK Youth boys got on the front and steam-rolled the bunch in a crosswind section. I was caught napping which is never good and was about 40 wheels too far back, so despite a do-or-die effort to bridge across me versus nine guys was never going to work! At this point I got a bit grumpy-gills because I thought that was it, game over. We were working together behind, but not exactly motoring and the race was going away from us. As I've learnt before though, and always forget in the heat of the moment, slow and steady wins the race. Well, not wins always, but you can transform a bad day into a better one.
Guys from the break started getting shelled and coming back to us and I boshed my way into a counter attack so that by the time we made it onto the finishing circuit (little be-known to me) we were racing for tenth place! Happy daze! Despite some serious tactical faux pas involving me attacking 2 laps too early in the finale, I stuck to it and felt not too shabby at the end. My sprint left a lot to be desired, but after 4 hours and 40 minutes in the saddle, and being a wet flannel in the gallop anyway I'm not too disheartened. Everyone else was looking pretty cronky at this point too and 15th is ok for me. The order that my group went into the final corner with 250m to go was the finishing order, so that's a valuable lesson learnt for me.
One out of four bottle attempts is good right?
I'm off up to Glasgow this week for the National time trial and road race, so yesterday was a nice little confidence boost. I'm looking forward to some Scottish hospitality; my name sounds pretty good in a Scottish accent so hopefully that'll get me special treatment!
Josh 'Hunty' Hunt: Pin-up, beard extraordinaire and 3rd place finisher. *sigh*
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