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1st Women’s National Team Series.

The first race of the Women’s National Team Series was held on a new course to this series – the Hawthorn Hill course near Windsor. The event was promoted by Twickenham CC on Sunday 18 April at the most respectable time of 2.30 pm – so no early start or overnight stay needed this time, as opposed to last year when the first race of the 2009 series was held at Nottingham.

I am riding for the Surrey League (something I have done on and off since the team series began in 2000) with Maryka Sennema, Claire Leonard, Emily Bagnall, Lise Soerensen, Emma Craddock and Rachel Przybylski, to name a few. The team had arranged to meet at 1.00 pm for a ride around the course so I arrived with my partner, Rich Pearman, at 12.30 pm. It was a beautiful sunny day and everyone appeared to be quite relaxed and looking forward to the race ahead.

It was a full field of 80 riders with several others on the reserve list – hmm quite a daunting prospect for the first race of this series, as 60 riders last year at the first race at Nottingham had been quite enough, and as always a mixed ability from 4th category to Elite riders.

We all lined up for the commissaries pre race talk and I made sure I was towards the front when we set off in the neutralised section before reaching the course itself. However, and as usual, everyone wanted to be at the front, despite it being the start of the race and 6 laps had to be completed. Many of the riders were riding on the other side of the road so that they could move up, even though they were fast approaching a bend and it wasn’t a closed road course, so what had been near the front soon became towards the back. No problem I thought I’ll wait for the race to settle down a bit and then start to move back up again. Wrong – from the start it was a crazy race and I don’t know what it is with some of the women riders, but they don’t act responsibly at all and act without any forethought for the other riders around them.

Despite being told to keep to our side of the road and to only use the other side of the road to move up, many riders were all over the other side of the road as well which made it very difficult and almost impossible for anyone else to move up. The commissarie seemed to have his hand on the horn practically all the time and the race should have probably been stopped on the first lap, a reminder given to everyone, and then restarted as it certainly felt quite dangerous. Every time cars came towards the bunch on their side of the road, the riders who had spread themselves over the other lane as well had to suddenly come back into the one lane – a recipe for disaster.

I was unfortunately brought down on the second lap by another rider on my right-hand side who hit the deck and whose bike came my way. It was one of those moments when you just hope the bike will go the other way, but it didn’t on this occasion and there was absolutely nothing I could do – down I came. A mishap that should not have happened in the first place and probably as a result of someone trying to squeeze back into the bunch having been on the wrong side of the road and quickly trying to get out of the way of an oncoming car. To say I was cross at the time would be putting it mildly as my legs had felt good up to that point. I made an attempt to get back to the bunch, but on that particular part of the course it was flat and fast so it was a pointless exercise as they were too far ahead by the time I had got up and back on my bike.

I can understand the ‘red mist’ descending leading up to the final moments of the race, but not from the start and during the first few laps of the race itself. All logic seems to go out the window and sensible thinking is nowhere to be seen by some of the riders. There were 3 other incidents during the course of the race and no doubt they shouldn’t have happened either.

Unfortunately, despite it being a Women’s National Team Series, some of the riders are not used to riding in a big bunch, and some haven’t raced much or even at all. They are strong riders, but they are not experienced at riding or racing in a big bunch. In addition to this, you have riders of mixed ability, from a complete novice to Elite riders, something that just would not happen in a men’s race. Personally, I think it is time to split the categories in these races to 4ths/3rds and E/1/2, especially as there are far more women riders now than there has ever been. Perhaps all women riders need to have a certain amount of experience before being able to enter these races.

Having spoken to a few of the more experienced riders at the end of the race they all shared the same view and were not happy to be mixing with a lot of inexperienced and thoughtless riders.

Oh well, it could have been a lot worse and there’s plenty more racing to come – I’m not sure whether I should be excited or full of trepidation at the prospect!

I’m off to France with Richard for a week’s break – naturally it will involve a lot of cycling.