Going for broke

I hate starting with a definition (oh good, I just avoided it). But going for broke means "To commit or expend all of one's available resources toward achievement of a goal"

To wit, going for a fast time in the WTTA 100 yesterday. I did manage to expend all of my available resources (well, most of them) but despite winning the event, failed to achieve this goal by a long way.

In fact, I would have happily traded the win for a time < 3:42:50, but it was not to be. Why? Because that would have improved my Best All Rounder (BAR) average, which is the average of your best 50, 100 and 12 hour average speeds. An average average, if you like.

The BAR is a strange competition because the main contenders don't necessarily meet each other in the same races. You can take your pick of a number of 50, 100 and 12 hour races, roll the weather dice and hope that you'll do your fastest times. Or you can enter all of them, look at the weather, and take your pick. This is what most serious BAR riders do.

Now, I've already done a 50, 100 and 12, but thought that I could perhaps improve on my 100 and 50 averages. So far no luck. I've just got one more card to play and that'll be it. Depending on how that goes and what the others do, I could end up anywhere between 3rd and 10th in the competition.

But I digress.

I did the WTTA 100 last year and finished second with 3:41:22. This year my best has been 3:42:50 in the BDCA 100. I figured that I could improve on that, being fitter and all, but with the benefit of hindsight I realise that last year the conditions were pretty damn good. There was a west wind which you were mostly sheltered from going up the long drag to the top of the course, but which did help you back down the other way. And it was warm and sunny.

On Sunday, by contrast, we had a nagging noreasterly which absolutely killed your speed on the uphill leg, the sun didn't even dare come out so it didn't get above 15 degrees.

It was slightly annoying because I averaged 12W more than last year (and 10W more than the BDCA 100) and was 7'20 slower! I also paced it extremely badly, but I had a deliberate plan to go for a fast time, which meant I had to stay on target early on. When I looked down at my average power after two laps, I realised that although I was already 2min down on last year's pace, it had cost me 26W more. I was almost riding at 50mile pace, which is not what you want to do when the race is twice that length.

Needless to say things went a little pear shaped after that. I dropped 25W to ride lap 3 at the same power as lap 3 last year (but 2min slower), and lap 4 was 5W lower than the same lap last year, where I also blew up, but 3'40 slower! That's a shocking price to pay for a relatively small power loss. At that speed it should be no more than 20-30sec.

All up that meant the last lap was 65W(!) down on the first two laps but unlike last year I lost even more time because of the long slow uphill section and because it just didn't warm up. Last year the conditions really helped get me home.

I was lucky to get away with the win on Sunday. James Wall, who beat me last year, punctured after about half way and had to stop. I was maybe a minute down on him then (it was hard to tell) but given what happened later he would have comfortably beaten me.

But I wasn't the only one who suffered. Most riders either didn't start, didn't finish, or went 10-15min slower than last year. Neil Davies, who gave me a lift up, was one of these: 4:55 compared to 4:41. But his son Luke managed a 4:43 in his first ever 100 to take the juvenile prize. Bloody good going on a rough day. Chippenham also took the team prize with me, Steve Ayres (4:22:06) and Gordon Scott (4:23:47). Yay team!

I'll chalk it up to experience but I was quite pleased at what I was knocking out for the first two hours, at a seemingly comfortable pace. That average power last year got me a 1:44:05 for 50 miles on the same roads. Yesterday it was more like 1:52, which goes to show how much a difference conditions can make. Also, had I ridden a well-paced race, I could have gotten my time down to 3:45 or so, but that wouldn't have been good enough.

Next up: The British champs in September. I'll not be troubling Wiggo and co but it'll be interesting to see how close I can get to the top pros in 52km.

Killing time

I've just finished a week of holidays (well, time off in lieu) and by god I needed it. I've not had a proper break since January and was running very low on mental energy.

I couldn't believe how much sleep I had during the first few days: I'd have two one hour naps during the day, then sleep for 10hrs! But I seem to have caught up at last.

Racing has resumed too. I did a 50 in Wales last weekend and won it in 1:47:09 by 20seconds or so. This was helped largely by Ceri Pritchard pulling out with, erm, skinsuit issues with 7 miles to go. He was 1'30 up on me at halfway and I doubt he would have lost that over the final 25 miles. But my power was decent, my pacing excellent, and my legs were absolutely wrecked the next day. I blame the Bristol Harbour Festival on the previous day for that :-)

I had a go at the club 10 again, although I probably shouldn't have. I was slower than last week (21'41 vs 21'32), but also 12 watts down b/c I wasn't fresh. I'd gone back to my old position too, and taking into account conditions, I figured the old one was marginally quicker than my experimental one. Dang, so much for 10%.

I did some more testing on Thursday (not ideal as I had a race on Saturday) and thought I'd found another 10%. But no, although I think what I found was marginally quicker than my old position, it's nothing like 10% faster.

The race was round 5 of the Rudy Project, probably the last one I do in the series unless I decide to do the final one in mid October. It was two laps of a lumpy course near Worcester, which looked faster than it actually was.

Actually I tell a lie, Matt Bottrill made it look quick with his time of 1:12:40 for the 33.7 miles (54.2km). Ben had a great race to finish second, especially as we were equal after the first lap.

I was hoping to go a bit faster than I did but a series of mini-disasters put paid to that. First was getting held up by a bus on the first lap for a total of 2'10. The bus was waiting to overtake the rider in front but couldn't because the road was a bit twisty and there were double white lines. That's good driving and should be applauded but it didn't help me. I think this event should be held on a Sunday morning rather than a Saturday afternoon, as it's very easy to get a traffic jam on a single carriageway. I did use the time to chat to another guy who'd punctured and was limping to the finish.

At the end of the lap, the heavens opened and I found myself unable to see through my visor. Oops. So I backed off on the first part of lap 2, which was mostly downhill, then got going again after Martley. That only cost me 10 seconds, but I really didn't want to crash at 60km/h on a wet descent like I did 12 years ago.

The next section was good and I made up my lost time plus an additional 20 seconds, I suspect because the wind had picked up. I lost it on the way home.

Unfortunately again on the busier section to the finish, there were several large agricultural vehicles in front of me, so I had to ease up for another 45 seconds. Luckily they turned off but it was more time lost.

I got to the finish, pretty annoyed with how things had gone and my power output reflected that: it was lower than the 50 last week and the race was half an hour shorter! A combination of doing too much during the week and things not working out on the day.

3rd place was still quite a good result, but I'd rate it as my worst ride of the year. Funnily enough, the 4th place I had in round 4 was probably my best ride.

In terms of the Rudy Project series as a whole, I will now have 289 points while Bottrill will have 297 and is the deserving winner of the series. Depending on what happens in the next few rounds, I should therefore end up 2nd or 3rd overall. The prizemoney is the same (zero) so I'm not too bothered about securing second.

The good thing this year is that there will be quite a few riders who do the full complement of five races. Last year there were just two, and the winner Dean Robson hasn't managed higher than 5th in a round this year. He also rode on Sunday, but after being caught for two minutes by Ben and then nearly four minutes by Matt on the first lap, he pulled out. Interestingly, Matt was two minutes quicker this year than last, despite the conditions being rather bad.

What next? The WTTA 100 this weekend. Oh joy. Then a bit of a gap until the British TT championships, where I have entered the elite category and will be up against the likes of Brad Wiggins, Geraint Thomas, Chris Froome, not to mention Hutch and Bottrill. I need to find a bit of form!