Brain Drain, by Ian
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.