ICF World Championships today, weather was perfect for our race, sunny, warming up with very little wind.
I am happy with my ride, more of that in a little bit but I never troubled the podium at the end. To say it came down to a bunch sprint would be an over simplification but with half a lap to go that was what it would have looked like. Any (slim) chance I had of being in the final mix was spoiled by being 'sandwiched' by two riders in the right/left chicane style corner about 3km from the line. Just one of those things, a lot of us where taking chances at this point of the race, all three of us spent a few metres concentrating on staying upright which effectively took us out of contention since we were going very fast at this point. To be fair I was five or six positions behind where I ideally would have liked to have been.
Anyway a very fast circuit but a lot of it was very scary in a fast moving bunch. 80% of the course was on concrete road, a lot of stretches had significant gaps between the slabs in the middle of the road, some of the gaps positively cavernous, with some big differences between the heights of the slabs. I didn't see or hear anybody fall but the lateral movements across this gap had to be quite radical, if you can imagine riders moving right and left by a metre or more in a tight fast moving bunch with no warning, definitely keeps one focussed I can tell you. Mind you the field was packed with former pro's, a number of multiple TDF finishers, plenty of experience out there so within reason there was no over reactions which do get dangerous. We only did six laps for the distance so a long lap, with plenty of straights, the trickiest section was probably the last two kilometres into the finish we had quite a few corners which if you were too far back got quite difficult as the bunch stretched out into a single line.
I timed the length of bunch in the next race, it was 27 seconds from the first rider to the last, so being that far back put you at a distinct disadvantage, I was never that far back.
I was not at my best I was definitely not fresh, my sprint/short distance power output was 300 watts down which gave me no options whatsoever in a sprint. However I am not really disappointed since I rode the whole race at only 5 watts below my threshold power, my best 20 minutes was nearly 20 watts over my threshold power, my best 10 minutes power output even higher so if I had been really serious about this event I wouldn't have raced on Friday, but I came to race and I had really hoped to get a win.
I think what suited me in the race was that it was high speed all the way, with very little in the way of attack and chase, attack and chase. I guess because it was a championship nobody was getting any leeway, so we just kept going fast and as one of the oldest out there I never saw any responsibility to do anything other than look after myself. We were averaging 44kph until the last two laps when it lifted on each of those laps, so given I was missing a bit of top end today the constant speed was much easier for me on the day.
The one contribution to the race I made was at about one and a half laps to go I saw the gold plated favourite to win, a chap named Van Rentegem, setting up for an attack and jumped on his wheel, six of us were clear for about 3km, maximun gap was no more than 200m. I struggled for a couple of kilometres after that effort and lost position at the wrong time since the last lap was full on but on one of the long straights made up a few places, then took a few chances on corners with some late breaking to steal a few more places (there is no protocol here that says you don't overtake on the inside of a corner here, I remember being 'squeaked' at for taking the inside line on the last corner of the last crit championships I rode in Oz, pathetic). However as I mentioned earlier I still wasn't where I really needed to be so I eventually came unstuck.
Van Rentegem did win, its the only result I'm sure of at this stage. To put his win into context, I haven't raced him because he's only just qualified for the over 60 race and as recently as last wednesday I saw him catch a break for a minute and leave them in the last lap of a 50 year old race, he's a bit special.
I watched one race but then left to see if I could track down Steve Snowling, I've been trying his mobile without success, so since the race today was within 5km of his house, I went to try and find his house. Well I found the street OK but the numbering system in this street was like nothing I've ever seen, I could not find number 38. I walked the street checking every house number, I stopped two lots of people, one group spoke some English, they didn't know but pointed me in a direction with vague suggestions that it might be in that direction, the other guy I spoke to acted like I was going to mug him! I should point out it was one of these 'new' style streets with lots of courtyard type layouts, anyway it had me beat and I'm pretty sure I checked every door, I susepct that there was one of these courtyards that I could'nt find.
My problem now is how to race out my last week or so. I was going to race on Monday, Wednesday, possibly Friday, then either Saturday or Sunday, the way I feel at the moment, I might miss tomorrow and try and come up fresh for Wednesday, then do Friday and Sunday. Decisions, decisions, I'll check the weather and maybe try and find about the courses
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