About a dozen of us set off this morning, with grey skies and a steady westerly reflecting the more optimistic versions I'd seen of the weather forecast. Once out of York it was pretty much straight into a brisk paceline which resulted in one or two people being shed to make their own way round. I hadn't seen posters but it seemed to be "Who Owns The Road Day" with some really cr*p driving resulting in a few close encounters in the early part of the ride.
With a few brief pauses to re-group, the work-rate stayed pretty high throughout. Fifty-five miles door-to-door in just under three hours; the "out of town" middle two and a half were despatched at just over 20mph average and (for me) normalised power of 236W - that's within 20-30W of many of the TLI races I did last year, and they were shorter. Looking good for season's start, boys and girls.
And now, No.1 in an occasional series:- Tips from the Pro's...
Some observations from Kit on why things weren't smoother than they were, and why some people worked harder than they need have:-
- The best way to stop gaps opening up in the "fast line" is when you're last man (or woman) start moving across early - when you see the bars of the last rider on the fast line go past you want to be shuffling over, so you can slot onto their wheel. Leave it until they're past you and you've got to jump across.
- When you get to the front of the fast line do not accelerate in order to get in front of the slow line and move over - keep your pace steady and wait for the rider on the front of the slow line to drift back past you. If you accelerate, the rider behind will do the same, and next thing the whole pace of the bunch is cranked up. Not good.
- When you've pulled over to the head of the slow line, just ease off a touch; don't stop pedaling but knock enough effort off for the fast line to move past you without increasing their pace.
- If all of this happens, gaps shouldn't open up and no-one should end up doing massive turns on the front.
Lastly, a reminder that next Thursday is the pub evening for sharing notes on upcoming races. 7:30 in Brigantes, all welcome. If you're teetering on the brink of entering stuff, come along and find out what's involved. If you've already got a fistful of entries in the post, come along and tell everyone what you're up to so lifts can be shared or past experiences picked over. There are enough of us in some events we could even talk tactics. Tactics! Lawks!
