Second consecutive Sunday riding with Rupert and Noel on tired legs. At some point Denis and I have to have a serious thought about our riding plans for the weekends. We keep putting ourselves in these challenging rides and I’m just not sure these near death experiences are any good for training. Although, to be fair, Denis looked amazing today. Very impressive ride from him.
And you can believe me it wasn’t easy. In case Ruper and Noel were not enough to make any ride challenging we were joined by Enrique, a very solid rider, and Judah “steady at 400w” Rand.
My ride can be summarised in two sentences. I was last in every single climb, by a big margin. The coffee at Tanhouse didn’t rescue me, the second half of the ride, despite being flatter than the first half and the caffeine running wild in my veins, felt equally challenging to me.
But when I look at the positives I remember I got some important wins today.
I got a heavily contested sprint at some point near Esher. It was one of those sprints I’d never take because I had no idea it was there. Rupert moved to the front and increased the pace so I held his wheel. At some point he started the sprint, and then, for reasons I can’t imagine, he slowed down. Did he realise he had nothing to do with such an accomplished sprinter on his wheel? I wouldn't be surprised. In any case I took that as the sign to attack and clearly took the sprint. I even had time to celebrate. Looked back and saw the whole group at full speed at some distance desperate as they had missed the only line that really mattered in today's ride.
I feel for them. I’m sure they’ll be making up excuses, we didn’t know there was a sprint there, there was a lot of traffic, they might even go as far as pretending they didn’t contest the sprint. Don’t buy their excuses. It was a great win. Comparable to my today’s second win. I was awarded table number 1 at Tanhouse!!!! Coming from a place that sees so many cyclists it really means something. Can’t decide if more or less than the sprint I won. But if they say a win is a win, imagine two wins. They almost made me forget how hard today’s ride was for me.
The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/5462577759
Take care
Javier Arias González
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