Winter 2018/19

With my 2019 season now starting, I thought that it would be a good opportunity to have a look back over how my winter training had gone, and also what my plans for this season are.

    

Team Training Camp

   This Winter has been by far my best yet, with some solid gains made over the 5 months of the Calendar with no racing for me. With a great amount of help from the coaches at Trainsharp, I’ve managed to improve my weaknesses and consolidate my strengths coming in to the 2019 season, which will be my last as a Junior. This Winter has also been the first where I have had a real big off bike focus also in the gym to improve on my strength and conditioning which I believe has also helped immensely. The inclusion of some real tough team training camps with my team of HMT Hospitals Giant has also really helped to improve me this winter and have also been some really fun. These were largely based in the Leeds area which was very convenient for me, living only a few miles away from where the camps were held. Over these weekends we usually had a long and then shorter ride with both being really intense with some long blocks of chaingang and TTT over the flat lands heading up in to North Yorkshire.

    

In the break

Sprint for 2nd

    After a solid Winter of training, I started my season on the 24^th of February at the Clayton Spring Classic handicap race in Clitheroe. Although in February, it was an extremely warm race which was pleasant. The race was held over a flat course with three staggered starts consisting of Juniors and Veterans, 2^nd/3^rd Cats and then Elite and 1^st Cats setting off at intervals behind us. I managed to get 2^nd in this race to my team mate to make it a 1-2 for Team HMT Hospitals Giant in the season opener, a great way to start the year. Five Junior riders managed to escape from the rest of the front group on the 2^nd lap of 15 and hold off the rest. I managed to win the sprint for 2^nd to get my first podium of the year in the season opener, which was something that I was very pleased with, but more so with my performance and legs overall which I thought boded well for the bigger races to come later in the season.

      

    My first big race of the season is on the 24^th of March at La Bernadeau JRs UCI1.1 in Western France which is a rolling race and should make it really tough, so it is definitely one that I am looking forward to. The next few races after that are in Britain racing at some Junior Nationals and local Nat B races before hopefully being selected for the Tour of Poland in early May.

      

  My race bike for the 2019 season will be the Giant TCR Pro Advance 2, the same as last year, supplied kindly by our Team sponsor of Giant. The bike is kitted out with an Ultegra 68000 groupset throughout and Giant SLR Carbon wheels. These will be used for local races and Edco carbon tubulars with Continental Competition Pro Limited tyres for races in the Team calendar thanks to our team sponsors of Edco Wheels and Continental Tyres. On a more personal note also I use Deda 38cm handlebars, a Pro Stealth saddle, Quark power meter and Lizardskin bar tape as the finishing kit.

2019 Race bike

   Thanks very much to Team HMT Hospitals Giant as well as the other team sponsors of Kask Helmets and Verge Kit manufacturers for all their support. I would also like to thank Pedal Potential and Trainsharp for their funding and coaching. With my season really kicking off towards the end of March I am very much raring to go in what will hopefully be a successful year!