After the
Team Pursuit
was rained off on the 7th July it was
rescheduled to the 15th
July, this left us with problems. Dave Peck was flying out to Italy
that day to
ride the Pinarello and Rob Drinkwater was unavailable to attend as that
was the
day he was expecting to give birth. Both teams were re shuffled Stuart
Stow
joining John Warnock, David Jack and Gavin Mitchell in Twickenham A
team. Kevin
Butchart and Tom Sutherland were drafted in to join Nigel Atkins and
Will
McFarland in the Twickenham B team.
The hours
leading up
to the team pursuit there was quite a lot of rain in West Drayton and I
feared
it would be rained off again. We left home at around 6pm, the journey
was going
well until we got past junction 8/9 on the M4 the traffic came to a
stop and we
sat there for about forty five minutes, by this point I was concerned
if we were
going to get there at all. Then the traffic started to move and we went
passed a
Peugeot 206 which had no front end. We arrived at Palmer Park and the
track was
dry but very sandy from the long jump pits. Dave, John, Stuart, Nigel
and Kevin
were all there warming up and preparing their bikes. Then we heard the
news
that Tom and Will had a mystery illness and would not be turning up.
With
raised eye brows we discussed whether to reshuffle the teams again or
just run
one team. We decided to run the A team as we had planned while Kevin
and Nigel
would have a go but it wouldn’t count because they didn’t have enough
riders.
After a
long warm up
we rolled round to the back straight for our heat against AW Cycles.
Our
starting order was John, Gavin, Stuart then David. We started off John
immediately pulling a few lengths away from me but I managed to pull it
back
before we left the first banking, looking at the video it wasn’t our
best start
but we were away with no troubles. We got into our rhythm quickly and
were
lapping at 36 seconds. After 5 laps we were going well but we were
being
quickly chased down by AW Cycles. As we went passed AW’s station we did
not
hear a shout from their judge, at the time Stuart was on the front and
when we
arrived at the banking he swung up the banking as AW were coming around
us.
Stuart had to stay high so they could come under him, AW didn’t exactly
hurry
when they passed us and Stuart was left at the top of track for the
entire
length of the banking, by the time it was clear for Stuart to drop down
the
track onto my wheel a gap had grown to about 20/30 meters which Stuart
was
unable to chase down. With 3 laps to go and with 3 riders left we were
ready to
start cranking up the pace but after AW had passed us they didn’t move
ahead,
they were now slowing us down. All in all AW Cycles made a right hash
of it and
it did cost us a couple of seconds. We came home in a time of 05:25:10,
AW Cycles
coming home in a time of 05:07:83.
It was
clear that AW were
in the final but would it be against us or Reading CC, who were in the
next
heat against DNA Cycles. Reading CC had a good ride catching DNA fairly
quickly
but lost a rider with about 4 laps to go. We knew it was going to be
tight and
Reading had a fast finish setting a time of 05:16:71, with DNA Cycles
stopping
the watch at 05:52:10. The final for the regional championship was AW
Cycles v
Reading CC, with Twickenham CC coming 3rd
getting the bronze medal.
Kevin and
Nigel were
getting ready for there ride, while David Jack had a word with the
organiser.
Dave managed to negotiate two of the Twickenham A team joining Kevin
and Nigel
as we hadn’t made the final. We lined up on the back straight John
starting us
off followed by Nigel then myself then Kevin. We started off not as
fast as our
last ride but we were riding at 38 second laps. At about half distance
we lost
Kevin. I now had John behind me and we started to begin to crank the
pace up,
when I got back to the front I could hear John cheering me on from
behind me,
by this point I was starting to feel a bit tired and what I could hear
John
wasn’t even out of breath. We finished strongly recording a time of
05:34:70
with wasn’t a bad time considering John and I had ridden twice.
Although this
ride didn’t count it was worth it as Kevin and Nigel had travelled and
were
eager to ride. Kevin benefited from the sessions we had the most and
this
showed in the team pursuit by the two big efforts he put in on the
front.
The final
saw AW
Cycles in the home straight take on Reading CC in the back straight.
The first
two laps where pretty even, then AW Cycles started to pull out a lead.
With 3
laps to go Reading CC lost a rider and AW Cycles were beginning to see
Reading
CC at the end of either straight. AW Cycles won Gold with a time of
05:08:34,
Reading CC getting Silver with a time of 05:14:53.
In
conclusion it was a
lot of fun riding the Team Pursuit and it was an event I’ve always
wanted to compete
in ever since I started cycling. With the performance we gave we have a
good
foundation to build on and to improve our time next year and maybe even
win. I
would like to thank Sean Bannister for running the sessions and being
there on
the night, I would also like to thank my family for helping during the
sessions
and during the event.