A month gone bye

February vanished into thin air, did it not?

What a crazy month. Obviously it started fairly well, a couple of weeks of fairly decent racing capped by my first win. Hopefully theres many more to come, but since then life has hardly been plain sailing round here. You already know about 'the crash', but since then things are still yet to pick up.

In the immediate aftermath of the van incident I was nothing short of determined to jump straight back on my bike and get on with it. What better way to stick the middle finger up at the van man? Only my body didn't quite share my enthusiasm. I felt more and more fatigued that week which culminated in me being unable to complete the prescribed interval session that Thursday. I just could not get my legs to turn over at any more than a sedentry pace. However there was one small glimpse of brightness on the horizon...

The next day I got to ride a Cervelo Soloist SLC-SL which is pretty much the best bike money can buy. As we had the machine to test, courtesy of Ultimate Pursuits, one of our sponsors. The bike was quite something, although at almost £3000 just for the frame, it failed to convince me it was really worth it. Don't get me wrong, it was a joy to ride, a dream in fact! But for me it just lacked that je ne se quais! But I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was certainly the stiffest bike I have ridden to date. Ideal for a sprinter like me. And climbing on it felt almost easy, due to the noticable lightness of the bike. All in all it was around 2kg lighter than what I'm used to, thats a fair amount! I think the bike certainly gave me a much needed adrenaline rush to pick me up. Unfortunately though, it was short lived...

The next day I felt terrible, just riding along in a bunch of 12 was hard work. And it wasn't particularly quick either. I was due to race again the Sunday, the 24th, but I decided it simply wasn't worth it given my condition, so I just went to spectate instead. My knee was still swollen at this point from the van, so I guess it was wise to take some time out. I didn't ride again until last Wednesday, where despite feeling much better, I still wasn't back to being myself. So I wasn't really suprised when I awoke on Thursday feeling absolutely crap. Almost flu like conditions meant I spent most of the day in bed before forcing myself to start dismantling the now defunct Giant. Friday I felt a little better, although far from fantastic. The flu like symptoms were giving way into a cold instead. Great. So that's rumbling on to now, hopefully it won't last too much longer.

Anyhow, a brief story of the most dangerous race I have ever ridden... Saturday, at Hillingdon, almost 80 people had signed on to race the 3/4 cat race. Which was far to many people. Dangerous is not strong enough a word to describe it. Perilous perhaps? I still wasn't feeling particularly strong so for the most part I sat near the back joking with a De Ver Cycles rider about some of the dodgy riding we were witnessing. Nearer the finish I decided I would try to go for the win, so moved up accordingly. Then, on the last lap Evans Cycles rider Geoff Lulham forcefully barged me off the track. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do, to put it into perspective. Had I done the same to him, he would have gone into the rider next to him on his right and probably caused a mass pile up. But because I had the grass to run onto he thought it was Ok. I didn't. I was initially fuming, although I did later calm down. I did complain to the comissaire, although there had already been a crash behind us on the back straight, with an ambulance on the way he was obviously not too interested in what I had to say. Fair enough. Funnily enough though I have since found out from a friend of mine that this particular rider has something of a reputation for riding dangerously and causing crashes. So he is certainly a marked man now in my eyes.

One final piece of my comedy life, I wanted to take a look at the road racing circuits for my next few races this morning. And the car wouldn't start. Brilliant, whats next? It's crunch time now, the next three weeks are what I have been training for since October. But much more bad luck and sickness and it's all going to go out of the window...