Cyclo Sportif Byford SPR Group A

 
I tore my calf on the Thursday leading up to the Sportif which meant no running for awhile (not so good for city to surf), thankfully my physio said I was allowed to ride my bike but no hills and no sprinting allowed (I was allowed to ride on Saturday, I just had to control myself and stay out of the sprint). Leg held up ok on Saturday so I did not pull out of the Sportif (afterall, the hills in Byford are not proper hills ).
Sunday rolled up, listened to pre race brief where Gary Suckling indicated there were some proper hills on the course (nothing for us hardened hills men I thought (thinking of Mike B mostly) and hoped there were no strugglers as I did not want to push with dodgy calf).
The A team included:
Michael Bonner: Riding very strong as always, never a doubt to whether he will carry his weight (even though there is minimal to carry) more a case of will he get a work out riding with us.

Brendan Nichol: also riding very strongly possibly stronger than normal due to Grafton training (approx 900kms a week, noice). Although hope all the kms in the legs had not turned them to Jelo) But no concerns over him not being able to keep up.

Ben Stewart: Never a doubt as to his mountain abilities or staying power, glad we managed to get him to come out with us. He has been a little absent of late in the hills rides (much like myself, possibly a fair weather rider too) but always stealing the points when he does ride and always up the front making my life hard.

Jerard Ghossein: Dr Ghossein as always is riding very strong, Poulidor is know more for his sprinting prowess than his climbing but he has been regularly attending the Sunday hills rides and gaining points in the climbs. Never a doubt about his staying power due to his penchant for Psytomax (excuse spelling)…

James Fox: First time entrant to Sportif, has been riding well on Thursday mornings and on Saturday morning where his is always pushing the pace with the break away crew. His recent purchase of a race illegal Parlee coupled with his light body indicates he should handle the hills ok (even though his presence on Sunday rides is almost non existent).

Mark DeCastro: The smartest man in the bunch, tenacious and always there. Has ridden in prior sportifs and is always rearing to go faster all the way to the end. He has been riding regularly on Sundays and stealing points now and then too.

John Doyle: The quiet achiever, recently back from a cycling tour where he conquered some huge climbs in Italy and France. He should have his hill climbing legs and there were little concerns over him fading over the distance.

Gregor Urquhart: A slightly unknown entity for me as I have not been attending the Sunday rides but I had ridden with him before and he appeared to be another tenacious fella (mountain bike men usually are) who was attending the Sunday rides, so the 9th birth was given to him (even though he was slightly reserved about taking it).

Ryan Fynn: (myself) a little of an unknown entity at the time due to lack of riding and torn calf but I felt running had possibly helped my endurance which would enable me to hang on worst case scenario.

So all in all, a good group of guys who could tackle the hills.  The time came and we were all off to face the 86kms of gentle undulations. We took off at a reasonable pace and were soon rolling through nicely into what seemed a forever present headwind. We were soon overtaking other teams, some whom were still riding but a fair few who were stopped on the side of the road repairing punctures. Michael Bonner said jokingly that we had a chance of winning provided we did not get a puncture (if past events were anything to go by, we were almost certain to get at least one puncture).
A decent pace was set but when swinging left onto the main highway the pace seemed to drop alot, I am not sure why, we now had a tail wind? Mike B said everyone was catching their breath, then told me he was going to put a little effort into the hill and would wait at the top or turn around and come back to us in order to get a more solid hitout. I tried to hurry everyone along as any cruising time was time lost.
Once on the hill, we rode a steady pace as a group and started picking off other groups. Soon, Mark DeCastro was struggling a little so I helped push him to the front of the group to keep the pace up. Gregor was also struggling but was managing to hang on to the back of the group so did not get a helping hand up the initial hill I do not think. I dropped my glove as the road flattened so had to turn back to grab it, Michael B stayed back for me and we jumped back onto the group easily.
Along the undulations, I tried to keep the pace up again as I felt we could all hang on but some breaks formed so the pace had to be kept in check (James was wanting to head off the front ). Mark DeCastro was loving the downhills and set the pace when going downhill. I tried to tell him to take it easy to ensure he left some gas for the uphill sections.
We kept our roll through happening and everyone was taking their turns to the Dam. Coming down into the dam there is a pretty sharp turn which we had been warned about in the pre race brief, Jerard was the only one to indicate he felt it was a little hair raising as he took some speed into the corner. We had a little regroup to catch breath, drink and gu up whilst going across the bridge as we were sure there would be some more uphill after all the down hilling we had been doing.

Sure enough once over the bridge, the road faced north again. Here I was doing some more pushing (turns out I would rather push to keep the average pace up than let the average pace slip down), Mark DeCastro was struggling with the pace a little and I gave Gregor a push to the front as well. But we worked well as a team and soon the hill was behind us and we were up to speed along the undulations.

Then there was some really rough roads and I looked back and one of the teams we had just passed was just behind us (a triathlon team). I did not want them to draft off us so tried to up the pace a little more. This is when James popped and I had to drop back a little to get him and push him onto the back of the group. I did not shout out for the pace to ease up as wanted to keep away from Triathlon team who were just behind us. This had to be the hardest part for me as pushing at full pace into a head wind was tough.. Grrr But soon enough we were on the back of the group and James could look after himself… Phew..

Then the road went narrow and there was a car behind us and a car coming in the distance. This meant we slowed a little and once again the triathlon team came closer (they were always in the back of my mind, I did not want to help them along.. grrr), someone said to let them go through, noway, they were drafting us and would slow us down if we let them through. Soon we were at the turn around point and I said to the Triathlon team that I thought Triathletes did not Draft??

We were on the home stretch now with a tail wind and I tried to get the pace up as soon as we turned. Once again, any down time was lost time, have a drink when we are at full pace, not when we are going slow (I also wanted to get rid of triathlon team).. Soon enough we were rolling through and pace was on. Brendan, Mike B and Ben were still very strong and we soon pulled away from the Triathlon team. Then came a little zig zag where we had to cross the railway and we got stuck behind a lil old lady in her old car who was not sure where to go and was even less sure when I shouted out for her to get going from behind. I took the lead and went around her hoping others would to. We lost some time whilst we all regrouped and got up to speed again (which allowed triathlon team to gain some ground again… Grrrr).

Then last 10 or so kms was hard but good, Brendan put in alot of work (looking very strong in lead up to Grafton) and the call to ease up was only made now and then and when it was, we eased up till group was together, then picked pace up again. Well oiled machine I tell ya.  I then started to fade (head mostly as I looked down at speedo and we were at 84kms and the event was meant to be 84kms but there was no end in sight… Hopefully we had not missed a turn off somewhere).. We continued on at pace and Brendan asked where the finish was too but soon enough we spotted the turn and we were on the home straight. I moved to the front as I had the timing chip and drove the train over the finish line.

I felt like it was a great team ride and we all shook hands and gave each other pats on the back etc (clothes stayed on) before tucking into some of Lorraines great muffins which were washed down with coke (thank you very much Lorraine for looking after us when your body was broken and you needed the looking after).

When the results came out, it turned out we had the fastest time by over 3 minutes (when I sent out the results both James and John wrote back asking if they were interpreting the results correctly and if in fact we had the fastetst time), a fantastic result even if it was in a participation event our team work definitely paid off and I am looking forward to the next event.

Below is a table of heart rates for the event (some shorter distance participants in there to), you can see Gregor and Mark were definitely digging deep, whilst Mr Bonner was taking it easy waiting up for us to catch up 😉

Here are the links to some Garmin data to which is pretty interesting:

Ryan http:  //connect.garmin.com/activity/11799785

Jerard http:  //connect.garmin.com/player/11743536

Mark DeCastro http://connect.garmin.com/activity/11751615

Melvyn http://connect.garmin.com/player/11751289