The Goodwood Gallop

This week has to have been one of the busiest weeks on the bike I've had since touring in the USA. Devil Ride last Sunday, racing at Dunsfold Tuesday, training Thursday and today my second taste of racing at Goodwood racecourse near Chichester. Thursday's training ride with the fastmen from the club was a blistering 40 mile loop around the Sussex countryside in team time trial fashion. It felt great being able to tear along with some of the most experienced and respected riders from the club and it set me up nicely for the race this morning.

The only slight spanner in the works was my works sports day at Charterhouse school in Godalming on Saturday. The obligatory night out before the sports day was a shot fuelled rampage around Guildford (which from what I can remember just seemed to be a few chain bars in the middle of a dual carraige way). Even with hangovers we managed to dominate the Netball at the sportsday (yes, Netball...) and beat every other office to win the trophy. If road racing doesn't work out its nice to know I've another sport up my sleeve (or should that be blouse?) Hmmm...

I left for Goodwood this morning with one of the other 4th cat riders from the club ready for the 9:30am start. We had about 20 mins to warm up and check out the racecourse which was a world apart from Dunsfold. The shorter 2.3 mile lap was of smooth tarmac and not the potholed patchwork of the aerodrome. After brief instructions from the officials to not wander onto the operational airfield in the middle of the track we set off for 14 windy laps. First few laps went pretty smoothly with no serious breakaway attempts until just past the finish line on the 4th 2 guys managed to get away. We'd been advised that in some of the 4ths only races generally no one takes charge to organise the chase and today was no exception. The 2 guys ended finishing 2 minutes clear of the bunch. I talked about this after the race and both thought that we didn't have the experience to just ride up to the front start the chase, but I guess everyone is thinking the same.

That aside, it was another good day for experience, good and bad. On the good side I was feeling fresher than last Tuesday and managed to position myself into the top 10-15 for the last 5 laps. On the bad side I had my first near crash, touching wheels with a guy in front when a gust of wind took him across my front wheel. The sound of a our Fulcrum zero's slicing together at 25mph is one I want to forget in a hurry. We somehow managed to stay upright and continue, though a few laps later another guy must have hit trouble and was being treated on the side of the racecourse for what looked like a broken collar bone.

100m from the finish was a tyre chicane which added a bit of spice to the final gallop before the sprint for the line. After 13 laps I'd got a good idea of where to be heading into the final straight and which line to take through the chicane before the finish. About 1km from the finish the strongest riders were dragging the bunch along at 30mph into the final bend and I'd used all my remaining strength to stay with them into the chicane. About 35 headed the line in front of me but I managed to overtake a few who blew up in the last 50m. The other Mitre riders did well finishing in the top 20 or so. The last Goodwood race is in October and we've decided to work together and try and get away ourselves...

There aren't many more 4th cat races this season so I'm going to try and make it to as many as possible. Along with the 2 sportives and the cylcocross season coming up it looks busy the next couple of months!