I drove down to Vay (44) again with mate Bob Jones, in an effort to push myself hard and it worked. The course was flat and fast, the was weather calm and sunny, but not too warm. Perfect for me to shine, but I didn’t!
Start: Narrow roads and a couple of sharp corners forced a sedate pace early on and the 70-odd riders soon stretched out over a couple of hundred metres. I struggled gamely for 5 laps before somehow losing concentration on a corner and dropping off the pace for no real reason. I’ve done this before and I really can’t explain why it happens; early fatigue perhaps? However, before I knew where I was, I’d lost the back of the pack and was on my own again.
Dropped: I know this is getting a bit repetitive. The last three races have more-or-less followed the same formula, but I’ve promised to tell the truth as I see it warts an’ all, so I can’t tell it any other way.
I worked really hard at my standard time-trial pace and managed to stave off being overtaken until about lap ten. I did catch and pass a few riders along the way. I even managed to convince one of them to latch on and we worked together for a few laps. Doing this we passed more riders. I tried to get these guys to work with us and form our own little pack but they weren’t interested. They all dropped out of the race before the finish.
So much for my plans to launch D5 and D6 categories to Pass’Cyclisme events. I figured that if I slowly added categories, by the time we got to D15, I might be in with a chance. Ho hum!
Alone again: A lap or two later my companion finally dropped out as we slowly passed the car-park. This came as little surprise to me as by that time I was doing nearly all of the work at the front. To be honest I was getting pretty fed up with giving him tow.
I was alone again and went on to finish a lap behind the race and very fed up. On a positive note however, my average time was rather good, for me.
As for Bob, he finished in the middle of the main bunch saying that he'd had no intention of risking life and limb trying to work through a tight pack on such narrow roads. To be honest, I wish I’d had that option.
Result: Race Time – 1:37:30, Average Speed – 35.3kph (22.2mph). Marks out of 10: 3.5.
I simply must train harder and get stronger, or next year I’ll be concentrating on Sportives again.
Next race a tough local i at Neant-sur-Yvel (56) next Sunday.
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