English
After a long winter in the cold wet weather, it was time for me to head abroad for my first trip of the season, where for another year was invited to crash with all the guys from Team Orange Monkey and Former National XC Champ and current National Marathon Champ Oli Beckingsale for the Cyprus Sunshine Cup Series. The series consisted of three weekends racing:-
Round 1 – XCO Race – Oroklini 20th Feb
Round 2 – HC Stage Race – Kapades – 25/26/27th Feb
Stage 1 – 1 lap Time Trial of the xc course
Stage 2 – Point to Point Marathon
Stage 3 – XCO
Round 3 – XCO Race – Amathous 6th March
Heading out on the Thursday 17th Feb my first race would be on the Sunday, which give us a couple of days to settle in and then straight into the action of the first race of the trip. I first raced the Sunshine Cup in 2010 and because of the strong/fast competition I had to get back out there this year to do it again. The day before the first race I practiced the all round challenging course an I actually felt pretty strong up the tricky singletrack climbs and my Kenda Smallblock tyres were giving me plenty of confidence on the rocky technical descents, so I was pretty convinced of a good race the following day.
Race 1 – XCO
Fortunately for us there was no traveling to the first race as our villa was only a couple hundred meters from the start line so we could relax more than normal before the start. Gridded 34th I felt confident that I would be able to move up through the field in the early stages of the race to get in the thick of the race. Off the start and into the start loop I managed to move up as planned, but by the time we were heading into the first of the 6 lap race, I was starting to realize that maybe I was going to struggle for the day. I pushed pretty dam hard, but I couldn’t seem to get up to speed as my legs kept stiffening up under strain. From that point on in the race, all I could do was try and hang on to the wheel of every guy that passed me until I got to the finish. The end of this race left me a bit zapped physically and mentally as I didn’t seem to get anywhere near where I was expecting to be and left me scratching my head wondering why I was down so much. In the end I put it down me doing a hard weights session on the Monday before and after talking to Oli he said that it takes a good two weeks to get a hard weights session out of the legs.
Race 2 – HC Stage Race
Stage 1 – Time Trial. Coming into the stage race I was a little unsure of how the races were going to go after the previous week’s performance but was hoping that I would be slightly more adjusted to the pace and could hold my own. Off the start of the one lap blast I felt pretty good picking good lines through the single track sections and maintaining good speed. However, after about 5 mins my legs yet again caught up with me, stiffening up and were seriously restricting me from going fast and soon found myself at times nearly coming to a stand still. By the end of one lap I had lost nearly 2 ½ mins to the leaders which was plain and simply a…massive loss finishing 63rd.
Stage 2 – Point to Point. Needless to say I was reasonably unhappy with my performances so far and wished that my luck/form would quickly turn positive. Again soon as the paced kicked up in the race I was left giving it everything just to stay in touch and all could do was hold on. Luckily for me the point to point race had a 1 ½ hr climb up to 1500m altitude and there were many riders that by the half way point were starting to fail and I managed to keep up the suffering pace to the finish, passing and dropping many riders on the way…so at least I was doing the overtaking for a change. Despite me moving up in GC after this stage I was still feeling pretty low.
Stage Result – 33rd
General Classification – 37th
Stage 3 – XCO. Getting warmed up for the start of the third and final stage, I wasn’t so confident and pretty much expecting to have another bad day at the office and with having a few mechanical issues before the start of the race I missed my gridding therefore at the back. Already things were not going to plan and I ended up getting to the start line with 1 minute to spare. From the gun I stayed calm and picked my moments to move up, and found that by the time we’d got round the start loop I had worked my way from a 90+ man field into the top 30 and feeling reasonable. I tried not to get to carried away going all out and remained cool to the finish for a solid result. I lost a couple of positions on the last lap but overall a much better performance than previous races.
Stage Result – 37th
General Classification – 34th
I think on the whole I done a little too much riding the week leading into the stage race which wasn’t ideal, but I always new that this Cyprus trip would be a case of getting in good training as well as hitting the races hard on the weekends. After the stage race I made a point of having a day off to recover, a harder session on the Wednesday then eased up for a good slam in the final race of the series on the Sunday.
Race 3 – XCO
By the time I’d got to the final race despite having a good time, I was missing my family, and was looking forward to getting this race out of the way and pack up for home. So with this in mind I had to hit it hard! Soon as the gun went I was looking for any little gap that appeared and moved up through the very strong field of riders. Pretty soon I was into the top 3 holding my own and although I made a mistake entering a fast section of the course and dropping outside the top ten, I rode strongly well inside the top twenty for the majority of the race. Again I lost a few positions on the last lap, but more improvement made on previous races against what was more like a World Cup race.
Result – 24th
Series Overall – 23rd
Most of the trip was spent scratching my head wondering why I was struggling so much in the races, I found by the end I was leaving Cyprus positive that I was heading in the right direction and looking forward for the season to kick off in full. I want to say a quick thanks to all Orange Monkey for the trip, but especially Ian Roff (Orange Monkey mechanic) as I had a few mechanical issues during the stage race and his hand got me on the start line…Cheers mate!
Results, Pics & Reports
http://www.cyclingcy.com/