End of Summer Vacation

Okay, so I haven't written for a while... call it a summer vacation. It's now well past summer as a glance outside at the dark pouring rain would show, so back to blogging.

Lots of news to share, starting with the London Women's Cycle Racing League prize presentations last night. It was a great event, hosted by Look Mum No Hands of course. We, the Kingston Wheelers, did quite well with teammates Sabine and Emily picking up 5th and 7th place respectively, with Emily also getting the Most Combative Rider award. Having held on to my 1st place through July and August, I won the overall and KW as a team finished in 3rd. We all left with more cash than we arrived with, and some nice prizes too. All in all a pretty successful night!


From left: Emily, Lise, Maryka, and Sabine (Hillary absent) (courtesy of Dave Hayward and London Cycle Sport.)

Jerseys and Suffering

The Etape de la Defonce stage race in Wales went pretty well, all things considered; I'll write a proper blogpost about it later with pics and data. I came home with what I'd hoped to get, which was the women's GC leader's jersey and prize. It wasn't easy as strong Welsh rider Ang Mason was also there, but with the help of my teammates I gritted my teeth and got it done.

At a particularly low moment in the first road race, it occurred to me that cycle racing is just an adult verison of those games you play as a kid, the "who can suffer the most" games. Stuff like holding your breath for the longest time, who cries uncle first when someone's punching your arm, who's the first to chicken out of a head-on collision with another kid on a bike. Everything else being more or less equal, it isn't fitness that tests the best riders, it's nerve and determination and ability to suffer. Mental toughness as it were. Sadists, the whole lot of them!

On a different note, I've now worn four different jerseys this racing season.

From left to right:
-- my home club the Kingston Wheelers
-- the Surrey Cycle Racing League, our women's team for Team Series and other team races
-- the London Women's Cycle Racing league leader's jersey (which I currently hold but could lose at any time)
-- the Etape de la Defonce ladies' overall winner's jersey (which I technically never wore to race, but no matter).

Crystal Palace 2010, Race 1

Last week was our London Women's Cycle Racing league race at Crystal Palace, that short twisty crazy circuit in south London. With the daylight hours not stretching much past 8pm, the race was underway at 7:15 and lasted a mere 30 minutes for the ladies, about 40 for the E/1/2 men's. But that didn't deter people from signing on, there were over 100 people on the circuit by the time the races started!


Photo courtesy of John Mx of LondonCyleSport

I was freezing from standing around waiting to start so I hit it hard in the first lap and managed to string it out pretty good and drop some of the less confident/fit riders. In fact my max minute and 2 mins was in the first lap... oops! A few laps later we were down to probably ~12 riders and I attacked hard up the hill. Not sure if I even got a gap as there were some strong riders in our race and they were definitely chasing everything, but I started to tire some legs at least. Tried it again around lap 7, again, not much of a gap but lots of heavy breathing behind me! I really have to mount a camera on my seatpost so I can see what happens when I jump, at the moment I have no idea if my attacks don't stick because I don't jump away hard enough, give up too soon, or get chased down too eagerly. At least I dropped some more people with it.

So with a few laps to go and the front group down to about 6, I figured it would be a bunch sprint which didn't thrill me as we had some sprinter-types hanging on the back that I thought might steal something at the line. Also problematic was the way the men's races, particularly the 3/4 race, had broken up so badly that there was a constant stream of men overtaking us. For about 2 laps straight there was just one small group after another, leaving us to just ride around and not really do much.

We hit the bell lap and the two Pearson's riders, Elise and Mathilde had tried to cook something up. Mathilde hammered off the front around the hairpin and down the hill and Elise who was 2nd wheel let her have a tiny gap. I was 3rd wheel thinking, I gotta get around Elise! but that wasn't going to happen til the hill, I'm just too little to gain anything on people descending. We came around the bottom corner to go up the hill and I was still 3rd wheel, but then Mathilde started flagging and I saw my only chance. I jumped hard and buried myself going up the hill, just hoping that I had enough of a gap to make the sprinters have to kill themselves to catch and overtake me.

We came around the top corner and lo and behold, a dozen 3/4s all over the road pedalling like morons because they had been dropped (and likely lapped) ages ago, heading to the line. Seriously, if you've effectively stopped racing with a few laps to go, get off the damned track already! They were completely in our way. I had to decide quickly what to do, I ended up picking the right side, which was the long way around the bend but looked to have the most space to get by. I just floored it and hoped for the best, and managed to get the win. It was very close between me, Claire from Rapha and sprinter Emma from LD, I really think I just got lucky not getting tangled up with the guys. Frustrating for the other girls I can imagine, but then again, nobody but me did any attacking during the race, so if they wanted a better result, they should have made something happen I guess. Thankfully John Mx was there doing the judging which must have been a complete mess with us finishing in the middle of a pack of men.

So not a bad win, though with Charlie B and some others absent, it didn't really feel like an awesome one. Wish I could have done something more with my attempts to get a gap, but with such a short race maybe that was always going to be wishful thinking.

Entire workout (206 watts):
 Duration:   29:11 (29:24)
 Work:       360 kJ
 TSS:        59 (intensity factor 1.101)
 Norm Power: 259
 VI:         1.26
 Pw:HR:       2.28%
 Pa:HR:       2.07%
 Distance:   17.163 km
 Elevation Gain:     358 m
 Elevation Loss:    361 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (-3 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 744 206  watts
 Heart Rate:   129 188 169  bpm
 Cadence:      30 125 96  rpm

Last lap at 1:58 and 291 AP!

London Women's Cycle Racing

Late last year, several of my fellow female cycle racers led by Maria David came up with the idea of a London league: a dozen or so local races that we would tag as "league" races, add up points based on the results, and hand out prizes at the end of the season. From the humble beginnings of a few e-mails sent around and a meeting at the pub grew the London Women's Cycle Racing League, or LWCR for short. We're now over 50 affiliated members strong, representing 20 clubs across Greater London and southeast England and beyond! It can certainly be said that women's cycle racing is growing in popularity and enthusiasm.

So far we've held four events and the feedback from both riders and organisers has been excellent. Racing continues throughout the summer into late August, with the top 7 results for each rider counting towards the final points tally. In the meantime, the points leader wears a leader's jersey especially designed and created for our LWCR league. And our gracious sponsors Look Mum No Hands cycling cafe are on hand after every event to award the jersey to the current points leader.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was interested in wearing that jersey at some point. But for me, the league means more than results and points. I'm really impressed to see how many women have jumped on their bikes and come out to race. All of our races have had more than twice the number of entries usually seen at their respective circuits, and the competition at all levels has been great. Being fairly new to racing myself, one of my biggest disappointments last year was showing up at races to find fewer than a dozen -- often not more than a handful -- of women to race against. Meanwhile, I would look on enviously at the men's races filled with willing participants at all levels. With the LWCR we've taken some big steps in improving that, and there are no signs of it slowing down. And this is great news for women's cycling everywhere, not just London. Women want to race and they are showing it.

If you haven't been to one of our league races yet, by all means come out and race (if you're a woman) or cheer us on (if you're not)! You will not be disappointed.