Racing in April before the season builds

   April hasn’t been such an intense month of racing for me, just doing 3 days’ worth of road racing and a 10 mile TT also but the season really starts to build up now, with my first UCI stage race of the year coming next week in the Junior Tour of Poland.

     

Mendips

    My race days this month came in the form of the Danum Trophy Elite Nat B Road Race near Doncaster before the Junior Tour of the Mendips, a round of the Junior National Series, and finishing it off with a local 10 mile TT. Unfortunately I didn’t have a great time at Danum which was disappointing having really enjoyed this event last year. I was taken down in a crash around the half way point, and as there was no convoy of team cars to help get me back in to the race, I was unable to re-join the main bunch so just rolled around to get some endurance training in. The weekend after this was the Junior Tour of the Mendips, a 2 day stage race consisting of a short prologue TT, a flat road stage and hilly final stage. This started well with me putting in a decent performance in the TT, but unfortunately I didn’t gain a result on either road stages having missed the winning break on the second stage, and attacking far too early on the final stage trying to bring back time in the overall classification leaving me with no legs left for the end when I needed them. This was a disappointing weekend overall but some valuable lessons were learnt for the races to come, and also showing that I had some good strength and legs, even if I didn’t use them to my best ability.

Views in the Dales

     

     I then had a real good week of training on the bike, using the sunny weather and long Bank Holiday weekend to my advantage to get some really hard sessions in. Within this, was a 10 mile TT in Selby, North Yorkshire, where I managed to gain a huge improvement in my 10 mile PB of 21:33 which was really pleasing as this was an area that needed to be improved. I was able to put out a great amount more power in the aero position in previous in some decent road conditions which lead to this improvement.

   

    My TT bike is a Giant Trinity with a mechanical Ultegra TT groupset throughout, with a Quest tubular rear disk wheel and Zipp 303 front clincher wheel. I run a Continental Pro Limited 25mm tubular tyre on the rear and Vittoria Corsa 25mm clincher tyre on the front which combined with my Pro Stealth saddle and generic Giant cockpit makes for a very comfortable ride whilst also being aero. For the majority of TTs also, I use a Speedsuit (zip on the back) courtesy of our team kit sponsors Verge, a Kask Bambino from our helmet sponsors Kask and Velotoze overshoes in an attempt to be as aero as possible.

Thanks very much to all the sponsors that make this happen once again!

Next Race: Jr Tour of Poland UCI MJ 2.1 01-04/05