London Cyclo Cross League Round 4
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.”