I always think I like a course with a proper hill in it. God knows why. I definitely regretted ever thinking that way as we lined up for this one. It just went straight up the side of the South Downs. It was a brutal sort-out from the off.

I thought I’d follow Al Tullet, next to me, but just towards the top, he was giving Mick Bell a few yards gap and I wasn’t having that, not so soon, so I jumped round him and managed to be next wheel down into the trees for the first time. But I maybe paid for that extra effort a bit, and I was cautious going through the loose stuff in the woods. It was like that chopped-up bark stuff they put down in flowerbeds - and like marbles for riding on: Bill Bell fell off first time round. Not that it slowed him up much.

You had to stay in the tracks or it was really sketchy, so you wanted to give yourself a bit of space to see the line. But you can’t give Mick even a few yards, because by the time we’d got back round to the finish area, he was maybe 20m ahead and trying to hold onto the wheel of - I think it was - Darren Barclay. Though not for long, as Darren suddenly opened up a huge gap on Mick and motored off towards an impressive 2nd place behind Alex Paton.

As per, it was all a bit of a blur as we hit the staggered climbs again and I went into the red. I vaguely remember at some point early on Bill Bell coming past at a rate of knots; I didn’t even try to get his wheel. Then soon after I was overhauled by Al, and again I had to let him go. I must have blown a bit because Russell Short was next to pass me, even if he is a good climber. But I must have recovered enough by then to be able to hang on. He and I then had Chris Ansell for company, and the three of us set about hunting Al down.

Until Russell overcooked a corner at the bottom of the course, and came off. It was a low-speed turn, so he was soon up and had lost only his place but no time. As Ian implies, this course would be murderous in the wet. You had to really concentrate in the near-perfect conditions we had. Just before the finish, there was an uphill corner with more of the barky bits, and I got completely sideways for a second there on one lap, but just caught it. Love that feeling, though it probably put a kink in my rim.

Russell seemed to lose momentum after that. Funny how it happens: sometimes a fall gives you a big adrenaline kick and you ride a storming race afterwards (as Bill did), but other times, you lose confidence and your will is somehow sapped. Of course, there is a third possibility, which is that you actually hurt yourself and don’t get back on your bike at all. About 20 mins into it, this happened to some poor guy, who missed the tramline down the hill through the flowerbed stuff and must have hit a stump or something and bumped his head. He was lying there, moaning gently. I felt sorry for him - until I saw the silly bugger had left his bike right in the way. The St John’s Ambulance folk did their noble thing, and I gather the rider was OK except for a cracked helmet and sore neck. Afraid his back wheel might be a bit the worse for wear after I rode over it, though.

Anyway, back to Russell’s less serious off: without kicking hard, suddenly it was just me and Chris. Every now and then, I’d look up the hill and catch a glimpse of Mick, but I knew he’d flown, barring accidents. So I set my sights on Al, who was just maintaining a gap of 15-20 seconds, and went to work. Chris came through now and again, but I was happy to stay in front and choose my own lines. And I was guessing, judging by the way he was blowing hard on the hills, that his work was cut out to stay with me.

The laps were short, and we must have done that hill ten or a dozen times. It was one of those races, said Darren afterwards, where you look at your watch thinking you’ve been racing for 40 minutes - only to find you’ve only done 20. The short laps meant that, very soon, we were lapping people. It wasn’t always easy getting by in the woods, but I have to say, this year more than before, I think, people are great about giving way. Hats off, London leaguers.

At about three-quarters distance, we were gaining on Al, but he saw us coming and upped it a bit. But the work we’d put in had put Chris in just enough trouble for me to get a little gap at the start of the climbs, so I gritted my teeth and pulled hard for half a lap. After that, Al was going away from me again, but I was holding my advantage on Chris, so when the bell finally came, I knew I simply needed to get round without doing anything foolish.

Super circuit. Results a bit slow coming, though it was a good opportunity to chew the fat with the Arctic Shorter lads. And say hello to Sean Yates, who was patiently waiting to hand out the prizes. His boys had ridden the youth races, but both had packed. I think that shows a healthy attitude on their part, and his. And it’s a very important talent, knowing when to pack. After all, it’s only donkeys like me who plug on regardless.

This course holds bad memories for me. Mud and climbing are the only things I recall as we drive into Lancing. Scrabbling around for bottom gear a few years back, the rear mech wrapped itself round the cassette and ripped clean off. As luck would have it, the incident occurred right next to the spare bike, an antiquated Trek MTB. After that, it was a matter of grovelling round without losing too many places, hard work on a heavy bike. A hard course in the wrong conditions. Slippery when wet.

Today, the course was dry and I felt much happier as I settled in behind Matt Seaton on the grid. The start took us up an horrendous climb, thankfully only used on the opening lap. The usual suspects hammered away from the line and there was already a gap to the leaders by the time we reached the crest of the hill. The single-track descent through the woods was great fun, wood chippings covering the worst of the slippery tree roots which wreaked havoc in previous years.

A nasty little run-up at the end of the first lap could lose you a few seconds if taken incorrectly. Dismounting early and running strongly saw me picking off several riders over the hour of racing. Mick Bell and Matt Seaton were over the hill and far away within two laps. Barring any major mechanicals involving the pair of them, I just had to settle in to hold onto third vet position and try and overtake as many seniors as possible. A couple of laps in the middle of the race spent working with two other riders were useful for a brief respite before they dropped away and I pressed on with Russell Short in my sights.

It was at this point that the race leader, national junior champion Alex Paton, lapped me. Smoothly, effortlessly and elegantly. Bloody kids.

Clinging onto Russell’s wheel as the bell rang, the last time up the climb proved too much for me and he pulled away. An uneventful last lap and I crossed the line for 14th place. Not bad, but could do better.

Matt came in 8th. He introduced me to Sean Yates afterwards-he was doing the prize presentations-who commented on my fine blocking work for my team-mate from the rear. The sort of thing only a professional would notice..

Showers are a rare luxury at cross races. A bar is unheard of. Hats off to VC Etoile for a fine race at a splendid venue. I relaxed with a pint of, er, energy drink.

Thomas, who is 8, has written this report from the London League Cyclo Cross race at Stanmer Park, Brighton on sunday.

“I started racing when I was 7, on my road bike. I won my first race at Hove Park and have raced several times there. This autumn I have ridden the British Schools Cycling Association National Hill Climb and have ridden two cyclo cross races at Herne Hill. This is my report from sundays race.

We drove to the race in Brighton, my dad got lost but I spotted some riders and we eventually found the course. We got our bikes out of the car, I had brought my new Marin mountain bike and my dad had his Independent Fabrication cyclocross bike.

I warmed up on the course and my friend Cory from Preston Park Youth Cycling Club showed me the route. It was freezing, I had my gloves on and I didn’t take them off. The race began - I had a bad start and was in 4th place after the first lap and I didn’t want to let it go. After a couple of laps, Ted from Preston Park, tried to overtake me and he got in front of me but I managed to get back past him and finished in 4th.

I was shattered and I still had to wait for my dad to race, it was ages until his race but I had fun playing with my friends. Eventually his race started, it was raining and horrible now but I cycled over to the start line. Off they went, my dad in the second row. After a few laps my dad abandoned as he had tape caught in his rear wheel so he came back to the changing rooms. I got myself a hot dog and a bacon sandwich for my dad and we went home”

So, a better day for Thomas than for his dad! The weather was cold and wet but as ever spirits were good and the event was superbly organised. The Under 10’s and Under 12’s races are always popular at ‘cross races, a great introduction to the sport.

OK, let me get my excuses in first. I’ve had a cold since mid-week. Shocking sore throat, in fact. Didn’t think I’d make it to Mallory Park, near Leicester, but then realised I’d already paid, so what the hell: in for £18, let’s make that £48 with petrol!

The trouble with making your excuses in advance is that, mentally, you’ve already thrown in the towel. So, I find myself gridded on the front row, for possibly the last time this season in a national vets’ event, not thinking I’ll try to be 3rd or 4th into the first corner, but that I’ll settle for being on the wheel of John Shaw, whom I pipped for 9th place at Ipswich three weeks ago (he got me back in the Inter Area Champs).

The course is a little bit like Lydden, in the sense that it’s set around a motor-racing circuit. Nothing wrong with that: lots of grass banking for off-camber twisty stuff. But - and here come Excuses Revisited - the conditions were shocking: 4ºC and steady rain. The youth race had churned it up nicely, so it was seriously sketchy - especially in the opening sector. I was trying to stay warm in the changing room when Richard Wood brought in some poor lad from VC Deal who’d packed from the youth race after 20 mins, because of a chest infection. Every inch of skin was scarlet and he was shaking uncontrollably. Morale-boosting when the phlegm is already dripping from your nose.

I really didn’t have the legs, it’s true. But thinking I’d ride my own race and maybe work my way through. But that was a mistake. I was maybe 7th into the first corner and run-up. Twenty seconds later, after two people had fallen off in front of me, I was about 17th.

The first couple of laps were sort of fun because the bike-handling was challenging in the conditions. But it made the whole course technical, and it was hard to find a rhythm and get the power down. I only glanced down at the Polar occasionally but my pulse was never that high. [Note to self: make sure you don't sound like Chris Boardman but without the talent: 'Well, Phil, I just couldn't get my heart-rate up...']

A couple of laps later, I was vaguely duelling with a guy I recognised from Ipswich who rides as a private member. I managed to gap him at one stage, but then on a flat bit of turf before doubling back up the finishing straight, I lost my advantage because I couldn’t get it in the big ring. It wasn’t the mud, though there was plenty. It was my hands: they were so cold, I had no feeling in the fingers whatsoever. I ended up reaching right over the bars so that I could push the lever across with my whole palm. It was that stupid.

After that, I realised how fricking freezing I was and just felt dispirited. Mr Private Member and I got caught by a couple of others, and I screwed up the first sector, fell off and lost touch. I probably limped in about 19th or 20th. Basically, cold or no cold, I rode like a sack of spuds.

So, stuff happens. You just have to suck it up, and do better next time. Highlights of the day? Well, helping my son with his homework assignment (‘Why did the Spanish Armada fail?’) certainly made cleaning the bike less tedious. Getting bits of Mallory Park out of various orifices with cotton buds was also oddly satisfying. Er, that’s it.

Richard Wood’s comments on London Cycle Sport about Matt’s race reports got me thinking, which is unusual.

“You don’t often get to read what goes through a riders mind and what he feels through a race, “ said Richard. For this rider, what goes through his mind is nothing much, apart from ‘When will this end?’ What he feels is pain. Lots of it.

And maybe that is the difference between a contender and an also-ran. The contender is alert to every possibility, eying-up the opposition, testing them out with a mid-race attack and seeing what the damage is.

The also-ran lets a wheel go for no reason other than a lapse in concentration. He falls on a slippery slope, already traversed several times without mishap, because he is not focusing on the ground ahead. And he loses the sprint having dragged another rider round for the last two laps.

It’s only an hour. It’s not rocket science. Sort yourself out.

Look out my report of the next ‘cross race. It will either be very short—no brain activity detected—or very long—having discovered hitherto unknown mental powers.

Reed Court Farm, just outside Chainhurst, near Marden in Kent. Not a circuit I knew, but was thinking it might be heavy, muddy farmland. Well, it wasn’t. It must drain well, which is probably why they can grow grapes around there - on the way from Marden station, I passed a farm shop sign advertising sparkling wine (£7 a bottle; just don’t call it Champagne).

It was hard and fast, and much different to what the pictures from last week’s race at Penshurst Off Road Club tell, which was a proper cross mudfest (I was keeping my bike clean up at the Inter Area Team Champs near Lutterworth, so didn’t ride PORC). Hard and fast, and not very technical - just a few dead slow turns, but no dismounts. To be honest, not very interesting but plenty of big-ring slogging across bumpy, grassy fields. It was going to be one of those races where an hour feels like a very long time indeed.

As per, I can’t tell you anything about what was happening behind. A few of the usual hitters were absent: no sign of Darren Barclay, who would have gone well here. Brian Curtis, Mick Bell, Chris Ansell… all my usual rivals. But there were still Ben Lockwood and Al Tullett for company. And our ranks were graced with one of the UK’s top crossers, Jody Crawforth, and - no slouch either - Jamie Newall, both in Evans colours.

Jody did the same London league event last year - and, leading the pack, crashed headfirst into a rider going the wrong way round the first turn on her way (late) to the start. It was an ugly moment, and neither took any further part in that race. So there were a few unfortunate moments of deja vu as we lined up on the grid only to see some latecomers heading down the gentle slope towards us.

But we got underway safely in the end. And it was nutso fast from the gun - a real Jamie Newall special, with Matt Holmes and Jody C for company. Michael Butler was fighting to go with them too. I settled for Al Tullett’s wheel, just off the pace of the big boys, and we already had a little gap into turn one. Behind us, Kevin Knox, who is a strong boy from the Dulwich Paragon, was fighting to make contact and getting close.

Al and I pressed on, more or less sharing the work. Just after the finish line, there was a long sector of semi-asphalted farm track, where you could really motor in big gear. But there was a headwind, so, unusually for a cross race, it was good to be on a wheel. Though not that good. It still hurt all the time, basically.

We held off Kevin, but the next time I looked it was Ben Lockwood bridging to us, ominously comfortably in fact - he went to the front almost straight away. In front of us, Michael Butler was in no man’s land, and we caught a glimpse of Matt Holmes, having apparently lost contact with Jamie and Jody. On maybe the end of the second lap, Michael Butler had dismounted in the finish area with some kind of mechanical.

So then it was our not-so-jolly band of three: Al, Ben and me, soon having to thread our way past backmarkers - it was that sort of circuit where the front of the race can go fast enough to start catching people very early. At about two-thirds distance, Al began to have a little trouble staying on the pace. He’d not taken a turn setting the pace for a while, always a sign. This is often a mistake because, unlike the road, it’s almost always harder trying to stay on wheels in cross than being on the front when you can dictate the tempo and find the best line through the corners. But if you’re struggling, then you don’t feel you can make the effort to get to the front - it’s a Catch 22.

So Al starts leaving little gaps, which Ben notices and rides past me on a particularly nastily bumpy little false flat. He says something to me as he passes, which I don’t hear, but I don’t need to: I know exactly what he’s doing, and I’m going to do the same. We’re such nice people, bike racers: see someone in trouble, dish him some more. I’m hurting too and finding it hard to hold Ben’s pace, but we’re vampires all and the idea that Al must be hurting even more than me is just sustaining enough to keep me making the big effort.

When we hit the easy bit, I get down on the drops and drill it, and by then we have 20 seconds on Al and he’s not coming back. Brutal game, but those are the rules.

After that, I do my turns, but I feel Ben is stronger. The two laps to go board doesn’t come soon enough, and by the bell, I’m just glued to Ben’s wheel, quietly hoping he doesn’t attack too early. I think about trying to outpace him across the last field, but I know I’d be kidding myself if I thought I could go much faster. At the finish, he sprints away from me for 4th place and that’s a fair result: I didn’t have much left. Al rolls in half a minute or so later, after several lonely laps. He’s stayed in front of the unlucky Michael Butler. Jody, Jamie and Matt are 1, 2, 3, well in front.

I have to dash to make my train, or I might have stopped and bought a bottle of Kentish bubbly. The demi-results went up on londoncyclesport later on. On the way home, playing with the Polar HRM I’ve been loaned to log race and training data (see the last blog, Testing Times), I checked the basics: I averaged 165bpm for the hour of the race, which is about 92% of MHR for me. Interesting to me, since I never wear an HRM to race normally. Just goes to show, however hard you think you’re working when you train, you can push yourself into another place when you race. Chainhurst, chain hurt.

A bientot.

I’m way behind with race reports, but I’ll endeavour to catch up soon.

Meanwhile, I took up an invitation advertised on londoncyclesport.com to take part in a research project run by the University of Kent into the effect of training on performance in endurance athletes - in this case, cyclocross racers. So I turned up at 8.30am at the campus near Chatham docks to do a ramp test.

Ever done one of these? It’s also known as a ‘test to exhaustion’. For a reason. Basically, it’s like cycling up a very long hill that gets gradually steeper and steeper, so that you are working harder and harder until eventually you go over the red line and completely blow up. It requires a ‘maximal’ effort (they’re not kidding), so one of the more disconcerting aspects of the prodecure is that you have to sign a disclaimer should you drop dead on the spot.

So the deal is that you ride an exercise bike while wearing a mask so that the scientists can measure your exhaled gases (to see how much oxygen you’re using), with the resistance goes up every few minutes. You have to stick to your natural cadence, which isn’t hard until the watts start going up. I’ve never used an SRM power crank or anything like that, so I’m not familiar with what my watts are - although this is, of course, the gold standard for serious cyclists. Heart rate is too variable and unreliable as a measure of how you’re going; the watts don’t lie.

Still, I was watching the heart rate monitor, since that tells me roughly where I am. My own intervals on a turbo-trainer will be in the 90-95% of MHR range, so I’m fairly comfortable (relatively speaking!) there. Under 300W, it all felt fine - like I could ride all day there, except that I couldn’t get out of the saddle without breaking my cadence, so I was getting a bit numb ‘down there’.

Every four minutes, the researcher, James, would squeeze a drop of blood out of my thumb to test my blood lactate. The protocol he was using meant that once I’d gone over my anaerobic threshold (when the lactate curve starts to go north fast), the watts would jump 30W every minute, instead of every eight minutes. So the end, brutal as it is, at least comes fast. At 330W, my breathing was getting laboured, and my HR was hitting 160+.

So now I was into the endgame: 360W, 390W, 420W… a minute at a time. I got to 450W and it was all I could do to finish the minute. Everything starts to go a bit hazy then. Last time I looked, my HR was 179 (I actually recorded 180, a new max, since I’d been reckoning on about 178 - which happens to be exactly 220 minus age for me). God, it feels good to stop, but that last bit is actually mercifully brief and you’re so focused on keeping going as long as you can that you sort of don’t notice how much it’s hurting.

I came out with a VO2max - the greatest quantity of oxygen your body can use at peak output, which is standard measure of performance potential for endurance athletes - of 69ml/kg/min. By way of comparison, pro cyclists would normally record numbers in the high 70s; world-beaters would be in the 80s. At his peak, Greg LeMond was clocked at 92.5. The highest human figures ever recorded are attributed to Nordic skiers, into the mid-90s.

As far as watts go, a top pro would be able to average over 400W for an hour or more on an Alpine climb. To break the world hour record on the track, you’d need to be getting near 450W - the power I managed for the last minute of my test - for the entire duration. Unimaginable.

I asked James who else he’d got taking part in the research programme. The other cross riders he mentioned were Darren Barclay, Al Tullet, Ben Lockwood… this was hilarious: we all race together in the London league and we all finish within about a minute of each other. The physiological differences must be tiny - though Darren is clearly the strongest. But I’d bet we must all have virtually identical VO2max figures.

Then again, maybe not: it is just one measure of athletic performance, and many other qualities go into making a decent cross rider. Being able to ride for an hour at or over your anaerobic threshold is probably more important. And that’s before you even begin to factor in non-physiological features like handling skills, psychology, tactical sense etc. No doubt, we’ll compare VO2maxes at the next race, shake our heads and agree that they don’t mean much in isolation, then get on our bikes and kill ourselves for an hour and see who comes out ahead (behind Darren, that is).

But we will all be wearing Polar HRMs so that James can download our data. I have to admit I am curious. Will report more when I know more…

Ciao for now.

Here is the first of Matt’s race reports from Round 4 of the Mosquito sponsored London Cyclo Cross League.

“The venue at the Howard School at Rainham for round 4 of the London X League made for a real race track — a classic school playing field course over mown grass, with steep banks, some off-camber sections and tight turns providing the technical challenge. But not that technical — even after some mid-week rain, it was always going to be fast. You had to hold your concentration, though, because the corners were cutting up and getting a bit greasier once the 90-odd starters had done a few laps. With a few big-hitters absent, I was glad to get a place on the front row of the grid. With Mick Bell, in his familiar flaming London Fire Brigade colours, my chief rival in the veteran race, I lined up next to him. For a minute or two, we chewed the fat about the first round of the National Trophy series we’d both raced in the week before, at Abergavenny. Which also helped me avoid having to think about how much the next hour was going to hurt. Mick is also a fast starter, so my aim was to try to follow him if possible, then see what happened. But no one’s quicker in the league, this year at least, than Matt Holmes, who goes like a greyhound out of the slips. Or possibly a whippet. He is small, after all. When the whistle went, Mick set off in hot pursuit, and I forced myself to get with them. So we were the first three into first corner; almost my best start to date. It’s taken me three seasons to work out that you have to be up there. If you’re far enough back and you ride very strong, you might make up a few places, but basically if you let people go on the first lap, that’s it — you won’t see them again. Barring mishaps and punctures, the top ten into the first corner will look a lot like the top ten at the end of the race. And when gaps open up early on, you have to try to bridge without hesitating — let even 5-6m open up in this sort of off-road criterium, and you can spend the rest of the race chasing to get back on without joy.I can’t tell you much about what was happening behind us, because you only catch glimpses of who’s following when there are switchbacks across the field, but I soon found myself with Darren Barclay and Brian Curtis for company. Brian is a really experienced crosser, and usually up at the front. Darren, teammate of Matt Holmes in Arctic Shorter, is an amazingly strong rider: he’s like a tester the way he can churn an improbably big gear across the grass. This was elite company. Mick, meanwhile, was making a superhuman effort to stay with Matt Holmes and had opened up a 30-40m gap on our group trying to follow him. I had to make a decision whether to try to get up to him or sit where I was and hope that our group would ride back up to him. I was lucky the latter happened as Mick fell off Matt’s scorching pace slightly and he seemed to sit up slightly and wait for our group.

The laps went by in a blur, but you had to keep your concentration. After a couple of laps, Brian was struggling slightly with the pace. With a lot of nearly dead turns, if you were 3rd or 4th in line (as I was most of the time), you had to jump that much harder out of the corner to stay in the selection. It’s one of those cases where you’d probably be more comfortable riding on the front, but you’re already so close to the red line that you can’t make the effort to get there. Darren went through and just lifted the pace a bit, and all of a sudden I saw I had to get round Brian or risk getting dropped. And Brian spent the last half of the race chasing a frustrating 20 seconds back — just from that one lapse.

With Mick and Darren for company only, racing for 2nd, I was glad to be able to hang in. I did move to the front for one lap, but mostly they did the pace-setting. I was the clumsiest of the three getting up the short, steep climb after the hurdles just before the finish, and had to work hard to close a gap going through the finish area each time.

Come the bell lap, the pace just eased off a little. I put in one token dig going up one of the banks, but Mick was immediately on my wheel. Not even a hint of daylight to encourage me to follow through with a big effort. That put me in front as we approached the big bank before the hurdles, where Mick treated us to a masterclass in clinical finishing - first storming past me as we crested the bank to make sure he was first to the hurdles, then powering up the bank and outsprinting Darren to the line.

Mick is on fantastic form this year, targeting the trophy series and national champs. And you only have to see a photo of him sprinting (checkout the gargoyle face!) to know that you’ll never beat him for sheer willpower; the only way you’ll get past him is by being the physically superior rider. And he’s lifted his game again this year, so I can see myself having to settle for second vet in the league again, if things keep going as they are.

Still, I got a good start and rode probably a bit above myself to stay with that company, so I couldn’t complain. Next week, Lydden — a new course to me.”

Hello and welcome to the new Mosquito Bikes Blog. We hope to update this blog at least once a week, featuring news, information and contributors articles. We have been established for over 20 years now, and are always on the look out for new ways of keeping our customers informed. This blog is a new extension of that for us, and we would love to hear what you think. You can leave a comment or ask a question on this page.ÂÂ

We are also really pleased that long time friend of Mosquito Bikes and one of our sponsored riders, Matt Seaton, has offered to contribute race reports and occassional cycling related articles. We are hoping that he will be joined by fellow rider Ian Cleverly with articles and equipment reviews.

I will also be posting news items related to stuff going on in the shop.

We hope you find this blog a useful extension of the Mosquito website and we look forward to hearing from you.