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Giving it the 'Jens Voigt'

Race weekend and first spring road race of the season at the hitherto unridden, by me at least,  Dunsfold circuit.

So using the products one of our favourite sponsors, Dark Star Brew Co, I settle down with a glass or two and streetview. Pro reconnaissance style. But from the armchair.

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Having garnered nothing apart from a renewed love of Hophead, I dreamt of glory. Getting away in a break and showing everyone whose boss on the finishing 'berg'. I'm ever the (unrealistic) optimist but watching Jens doing his trademark break in Paris-Nice, cemented the plans.

So, unusually leaving plenty of time for once, I set off. Man, I'm well prepared. Well that is until I realized my race license had expired as I was signing on! £10 lighter but with a race number in hand I set off to get ready.

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A little bit of tinkering was needed to get the bike ready. I'd not ridden it for 3 weeks as it had been used for a video shoot so it needed a bit of adjustment. As did Phil's lovely loaner GF Ti. Albeit just taking the mudguards off.

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Having ridden the track bike uphill and down dale for the last few weeks, it was a revelation to get on the carbon KR810 with super light carbon Reynolds. Gears! Freewheel! Hoods! All great things that I had taken for granted. Still I was a touch nervous. The race was 55 miles. My longest ride for the past couple of months has been 25-30 miles. Seeing the amount of fit people and fast (expensive) bikes I was going to have to sit in I thought. I never listen to myself though.

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You could tell it was early season as attack after attack came in the first lap. Foolishly, myself included. I'd just hate to miss out on a move. The wise part of me way saying, 'Sit in, save your energy, you're not the one that has been sat on the turbo for the best part of winter.' The Jens Voigt side of me was saying 'ATTACK!'

Which is what I did. So about 18 miles in there were 3 of us up the road. One rider was considerably stronger than me and Greg from Brighton Mitre. To the point of where we were struggling to do our turn. He was nice enough about it and proceeded to ride away from us. Myself and Greg wondered what we had got ourselves in for. I was going to have to ride flat out for for the best part of 30 miles and had a brief moment of regret. Once that had passed we settled in and pegged the lead rider just in sight. Still we couldn't bring him back and it took two more riders who had bridged up to us to get him back finally.

We had a good unit now, doing through and off, but I was a weak link I felt. Missing a few turns before I could recoup my energy. It was great to be in the thick of the action though and I was loving the course, with some super fast downhills.

My plan of the peleton sitting up wasn't to be. The early season enthusiasm meaning that everyone wanted a piece of the pie so it was gruppo compacto with 3 miles to go. The legs were cooked but I wanted to hang in there as the finish hill looked so damn good. It was. It'd be even better with fresher legs and just the kind of short punchy climb I love. However 35 miles of so in a break meant I was fending off cramp as much as other riders in the sprint, rolling across the line in 25th.

The thing Iove about road racing is the tactics. You take your chance, play your hand, see what you get. It didn't work out this time but I'm already getting the race licence renewed for another crack.

Posted by Morvélo