Last night we raced with Southern Vets at Sandown. The club has 7 grades A-G and on arriving found my name in the C grade list, so I raced C, it was hard. During my warm up on the hill on the back straight I was doing 35 and thinking, this is going to get hard. The circuit is around 3km long with some scary S-Bends and a hill on the back straight and on our first lap we went up the hill( it is a long rise) at 39-40kph and I knew that it was Game On. I spent most of the race in the back third of the field, went to the front on the hill once to try and improve my position, but lost it on the S-bends, There would have been about 50 riders in my field I think. At the end my average speed was 37.7kph and I would say that I finished about 75 metres behind the bunch. The second last lap, we had A & B grade pass us just before the S bends and it got scary and I lost my place in the bunch a bit as I do not corner very well and on the last lap, the pace was on and I never really got in touch with the bunch I was chasing the whole time on that lap, as were a lot of the bunch, we had to go around a rider who had crashed and I had to go around two guys in front of me who started arguing....I probably finished around 25th, I think a few had pulled out and I had at least ten riders behind me....I sprinted to the line with the guy I finished with and overall was pretty happy with my race.
I could have raced D but wanted to learn to corner faster in a bunch so C was a better option.
THEN
We drove to Carnegie to look at the time trial bike and I bought it
So now I have a TT bike and it has Shimano Ultegra on it and the disc wheel, we already have a ZIPP disc which is set up for the track at the moment, so later in the year we will change the cluster back to Road and change the tyres (they are tubbys so that will be fun). The new bike is great although I am not mega excited about it, wont be until I start riding it I think....to me it takes about 4 or 5 good rides, before you start to feel a bike anyway.....I have had about 3km of riding on it, just to check my position on the bike, so we knew it would be the right size.
That is all my bike news...new bike and race at Southern Vets. Technically I was first woman, (only woman in the race so I didnt claim or anything and as such am not in the results.......)
9 comments:
How exciting to have a new bike! It looks like a good one and it will be fun to hear about your rides on it. Well done in the race too =)
yummy looking TT beast! you go girl! hopefully we'll get the TT series we asked for over the winter
Wow, Butts. What a nice TT bike! The little secret to cornering on your bike is you don't pull the bars to steer you push.
-B
Sarah, thanks - I will hopefully get to ride it soon as I have incompatible pedals at the moment\
asfast (aka LR) - Hoping to do a few TT between now and Jan - hoping to enter the elite TT in Jan just for the experience and to mix it with the best - dont have any expectations, but will be training hard this year so I dont embarrass myself
Bluenoser - When I egt to ride it - you just cant get Look Delta pedals any more....damn!
That looks like one heck of a fast bike. I just ran across your blog. It's very nice.
You are really coming along! Great job.
Sweet TT bike. I need to get one of those.
woah ... that is one snazzy looking bike, girl! how fun!
Thans s about the bike, I am pretty excited about it...that was until last night when I hooked it up to my windtrainer and when I jumped on it the seatpost snapped after about 5minutes, it looks like a dodgy repair job has been done and so I am off to the bike shop to see what I can do about it - bloody second hand gear - anyway I am not hurt slight corked thigh where I landed with the bike on top on me - I just went straight backwards off the bike - will be happier today when my LBS tells me he can fix it (and he is a whizz at carbon fibre apparantly)...wait and see.....will put pics on here too soon.
Buttsy, ok I so want a TT bike now. Looking good.
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