Abingdon Crit with Abingdon Race Team
Eddie Wetbeak goes to the races under the Team Zero Allez banner, with fellow Walruses Bill and Jonny. Thanks to the Abingdon Race Team.
Joining the army
I’ve come to the conclusion that driving to an event is the best bit. Getting on the road at 6:30am, sunrise, clear roads, no child to rear in the rear seat, and radio 4 on the go. Often on these journeys I find it’s the ‘Farming Today’ show, with some quality insight into a world about which I know little.
This week they were talking about the impact of introducing new populations of sea eagles into agricultural areas, and the friction this generates with the farmers, who are concerned with whether these sea eagles will gobble up any of their lambs. The show was majoring on the story of 2 dead sea eagles, and the suspicions that they were murdered by some elite country folk that hosted pheasant shoots – since the sea eagles also hunted the pheasants they wanted to shoot. (The pheasants were theirs for shooting and woe betide any creature that tried to beat them to it.)
It was all a very interesting debate, but I must admit that I was a little confused, as I thought they were saying ‘seagulls’ rather than ‘sea-eagles’, and how introducing seagulls to new areas of coastland was causing problems, and how seagulls had only recently been seen in the British Isles, and how seagulls hunted pheasants.
I had realised my error by the time I hit the M40 however, which was all the better as I was starting to worry about whether my confusion was using up any valuable watts that I might need later. And this worrying in turn made me worry that my worrying was using up yet more watts. I might not have any left by the time I reached Dalton Barracks! Which was where I was heading. Joining the army.
That’s right, hightailing it to an army base on the other side of the country at 6am on a Saturday morning, listening to a programme about killer seagulls at high volume. Needless to say – I was pumped.
Did I do it right?
Bill and Jonny were running late. This meant I had to find this place on my own. But where the hell was it. Google maps was no help. Bill rescued me by pinging a dropped pin. I found it. Christ this place was barren.
This was the bit I feared the most. The best bit (the journey there) was now over, and the worst bit was beginning: navigating the admin and culture of amateur bike racing. I was a novice and way out of my depth, but desperate not to show it. I had a word with myself about not mentioning Zwift, and not even thinking about letting on I was part of a triathlon club.
I drove through the gates and into a windswept grey wasteland. Landing strips everywhere. No signs. Tarmac all around and no way of knowing where I should go. I followed another car, not knowing if he/she had anything to do with the race or whether they were just a squaddie going about their business. They parked near a bombed out looking scout hut. I parked immediately behind them, which they probably thought was strange since there was no other vehicles in this huge desolate empty parking lot.
I changed slowly in the car, thinking this would give me time to watch what other people were doing and to try to ascertain what I should be doing. Where should I go? What should I be wearing? How should I walk? How should I be carrying myself?
A van arrived and 5 chaps hopped out who looked like they were part of some local militia.
I put on a pair of new shoe covers that Al Leslie had recommended. They were basically a pair of marigolds that you squeezed your cycling shoes into, and predictably one of them burst into fine strips of latex as I tried to cram my shoe into it.
More people had arrived now, and it seemed that everyone was striding confidently into this scout hut and filtering back out looking pleased with themselves. Must be registration. I thought I should follow suit, and time was marching on, so I probably should finish getting changed later.
So half-changed, I bowled out of the car and swaggered as best I could into the scout hut – wearing a bike helmet, check shirt and rain coat on the top half. And bib-tights, cycling shoes and one shoe cover on the bottom half.
The chaps at registration asked me if I knew what I was doing and where I should go. I sharply replied that I knew exactly what was what, thank you very much. They took one look at me, clearly didn’t believe me, and sympathetically walked me through the admin. Kind men, these.
Warming up
I finally found Bill and Jonny after this, and warmly greeted them (whilst inwardly cursing them for making me go through that ordeal on my own).
So with numbers pinned, timing chips attached, we had a couple of casual laps chatting about tactics and eyeing up the quality of the opposition and the quality of their bikes. Jonny and Bill were both seasoned masters at this business now (having respectively raced 1 and 2 previously) so had plenty of excellent tips to offer.
Our race was the Cat 4 one. Bottom of the list. No entry requirements. Come one come all. Right up my street. 45 minutes plus 3 laps, which meant about an hour. Banzai.
All of a sudden it was go time. We were lined up, there was a short brief given by somebody but I was far too nervous to listen to a word of it.
I should probably say at this stage, that this was the second crit I have ever done. The first was about 4 years ago at Lee Valley. My memories of that race were that it was utterly terrifying. No space to manoeuvre, boxed in on all sides, and a relentless pace. Then the only time it slowed down was when the rider right in front of me spontaneously combusted and out of nowhere hit the deck. I rode over his back wheel and calf. Terrifying.
Anyway, those were the thoughts I held in my head and I heard “three, two, one, go!”
We were off.
How to race in cat 4: instructional manual
My assumption, based on nothing at all and writing off completely what Bill and Jonny had said, was that nothing much would happen for the first half of the race, then in the second half, moves might go off, and I should make sure I was well positioned not to miss a split.
What I didn’t expect was a solo break from the gun. Off he went. What the…
In fact, there was no gentle getting up to speed or anything of the like. Half the field seemed intent on going bananas right from the off, whilst the other half scrambled to try and not get dropped in the first minute and have to immediately climb back into their car.
The first three laps were like this – groups all over the place, and then getting brought back, and then everything exploding again.
I was at the back for most of it, just hoping it was all just over-excitement and it would come back together. Which, perhaps, it was. As after 3 laps, it all calmed right down and we had what was basically a very large group ride at an easy pace for a while. Which was nice.
I was getting the hang of moving around the bunch now, working out where you needed to hide from the howling wind, and generally gathering confidence. I thought – right I should probably move up to the front as this could be a crucial period. As I thought this, I saw a group had moved off the front. Shit. I didn’t even see it happen. One minute they were there and another they were gone.
I saw a rider moving upon my right, going to bridge up. I saw that this was my ticket out of here and jumped on his wheel. Just as I did, I saw Bill and shouted at him incoherently. I’m sure he understood though. The kindly gentlemen in front of me pulled me right up to the front group, without ever turning to see me on his wheel. Banzai.
Only 4 or 5 or so in the group! This was great news. I could be in for the win here! But then I realised there was another, larger, group up the road. It looked serious and like it was moving fast. Bugger.
Like breastfeeding, crit racing is all about latching on correctly
I tried to galvanise the other riders in my group, but none of them seemed interested in trying to immediately catch the group ahead. Maybe they were tiring, or maybe they were playing games, or maybe they had all had their tongues cut out for whatever reason. Either way, I felt the importance of the moment, and the race slipping away from me. I thought I’d show my commitment to the chase and put in a hard pull for a minute or so. I flicked my elbow, for the next rider to pull through, but nothing happened. I looked around, and there was no one there. Bugger.
I was now stuck on my own between the front group and the group behind. I put my head down and tried to close the gap on my own, but it was really tiring. I’d spent almost no time in the wind so far in the race, and it was really tiring. Let me tell you, cycling not in the draft is really tiring.
I pulled the plug on my short lived solo bridge and fell back into the group behind. My only hope now was that it would all come back together.
It didn’t.
There wasn’t much cohesion in our group which had now swelled to 7, and after 1 lap of working fairly well together, things fell apart, and attacks started happened. It all got a bit messy. I really pulled a fast one on some guy when two others from my group went up the road – he did a real shift to get us half way there and then I jumped him to close the gap on my own and left him for dead unable to catch back on. That left 3 of us, which turned to 4 when one other rider bridged from the detritus left behind.
There was clearly no will left in anyone behind us, and the group up front had gone for good.
Which left the four of us with about 4 or 5 laps left, with nothing but games to play. One chap in particular seemed to delight in trying to convince us that the group behind us was closing us down (it clearly wasn’t) or that the group ahead were almost within our grasp (not true). But really, I was pretty pulped by this stage, so was happy to take minimal turns and just wait for the sprint which I would inevitably lose.
So we came into the final corner. This was the only semi-technical feature of an otherwise featureless course, and even this you could pedal through at speed. The finish was a couple of hundred metres after the corner. I found myself in 2nd wheel, which I knew probably wasn’t a good place to be, but didn’t really know how to extricate myself and just hoped for the best.
We came round the corner at speed, i latched fairly easily on to man 1 who had opened up his sprint early, but men 2 and 3 immediately came around me at such speed that I didn’t even bother trying to latch on. I just concentrated on trying to pip man 1. As men 2 and 3 shot off to the finish line and beyond. I sat on man 1, until about 100m to go when I unleashed my full 300 watt sprint to pip man 1 on the line.
I had beat someone in a sprint! It might have been for 12th place, and he might have given me a full lead out, but I still did it! Magic.
Finishing it off
There were 9 in the front group, which I had missed, and I finished 12th plaice (field of 35). A reasonable effort for an exploratory mission I thought.
Jonny seemed to be having a blast rolling around easily in the pack, but at some stage he saw George on the sidelines taking pictures, with Jonny’s camera. Jonny clearly didn’t like the look of the way George was wielding Jonny’s impressively large lense, so he pulled out of the race, overpowered by his love of photography and concern for his camera, which looked like it cost more than his bike.
Bill looked one million krona for the first half of the race. Marshalling things up front the whole time, always ready for any attacks. But suffered a lull in power or willpower at the crucial time. And then was left to duke it out for 17th plaice.
Post race catching up with George, Bill and Jonny, I was left feeling exhilarated. I wanted to race again. Straightaway. Right now. I looked over and saw the start of the Cat 3 race heading off. The rain had started and the wind had picked up. It was already battering my face and eyeballs. Horizontal. It looked grim. Maybe I was done after all. Time for some brunch. One of my feet was very very cold.