English
Saturday saw me take to the velodrome of Herne Hill, London. This day of racing was held in remembrance of Rob Jefferies. Rob was a friend of mine that I had first met when I was about 15/16 years old. Last winter I had raced against him in the Calshot track league, this was for the first time in years. Rob was a gentleman on and off the bike, with a fierce amount of power. So to take part in a remembrance race for him was really nice, to remember him in a way that I am sure he would love. Racing on the track.
The format of the event was based around an omnium with some madisons thrown in too. For some fun!
My partner for the Madisons was another old friend, Andy Sanders. I hadn’t seen Andy since 1995! So when he contacted me on facebook to see if I wanted to ride the madisons with him, I jumped at the opportunity. The Madison is an event where I think it’s important to know your partner. Be aware of their strengths and importantly, have a good solid handsling for the changes!
The event was nice and relaxed, managing to catch up with old friends too. Andy asked me if I wanted to practice any handslings, I asked if he was happy enough to which he nodded, so we didn’t practice. In the first Madison we got stuck well in, and won the event. Both of us feeling good and the changes being good too, even communicating. The worry was, when I was looking around for Andy, I couldn’t see him, and then realised he was in the track centre with a mechanical! So I was in the race on my own. Andy rejoined the track and I told him how long to go, threw him into the race and bang, he attacked! We went on to win the event. So we both knew our legs were feeling ok. Which is a good sign, considering morale has been pretty much rock bottom lately.
In the other format of races it took me a while to get used to riding on this track and where to launch attacks/sprints from again. If the meeting was a bit longer, I think I would of improved some final race positions. A few dodgy manoeuvres were occurring in the events, fortunately no accidents! So that’s good!
In the final event, there was a slight hesitation in one of our changes at mid distance, there was some congestion in the bunch, our two main rival teams saw this and attacked and maximized from it! Andy and I battled on and took 4th. Disappointed with the result, but considering the riders who beat us are all peaking for the maters national championships next weekend, we didn’t feel too bad about it. As it was more a tactical error than a physical one.
So on the whole, impressed with how the racing went, and great to get a win under the belt!
