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UCI race & British rr champs

Eileen Roe | Tuesday 13th July, 2010

Eileen Roe

Now that I’m back in Holland I’ve got time to write a couple of diaries. First off is the Ster de Zeeuwse a 2.2 UCI race. In my last diary I mentioned that I’d be taken part as Scottish team of 6girls including myself. We travelled on the Thursday taking a couple of hours that took us very close to the Belgium border. 1^st stage of the tour was a 7.1km tt to sort the field out with all the Scottish girls doing very good times all within 10-30sec of each other from the 10min30sec onwards. Kirsten Wild (Cervelo), done a blistering time of 9mins 6sec showing us all how it’s done & that size doesn’t matter! The second stage was a very late start of 6.30pm so it was a very long boring wait before dinner/lunch at 3pm & the cycle out to the strip at 4.20. 113km was today’s racing distance. Not well timed was our arrival onto the start line which just happened to be at the back of the 100+ field. I knew a couple of riders in front of me & planned to follow their wheels to the front hoping that some of the Scottish lassies would keep on my wheel. The beginning of the race was very busy with lots of road islands & narrow sections. One of our Scots Laura was unlucky to be involved in a crash something like 7km into the race. I saw the crash from the corner of my eye which involved bit of harsh shoving from riders, hitting the kerb & heading over the handle bars hitting the ground with her head. You’ll be happy to know that she came out the crash with nothing seriously damaged & unluckily cracked her carbon frame! Back to the racing....It was a horrible start & even I was nervous & hating every second of the first 15km which involved a lot of sudden breaking. The race was so slow with Cervelo on the front controlling it. Once it hit the crosswind section where the break went last year there was a crash in front of me where I was lucky & quick enough to hope onto the grass & catch the chasing bunch which got back on. At 25km it really got narrow but by that point I had made it to the front 10 riders. Nothing exciting really happened till 30-20km to go where it was the cross wind sections that line the bunch out in the gutter. Stupid crashes where happening everywhere & again in front of myself & Kate (which was the first time I had seen her all day). Feet out cross style hoping back on the road, headwind trying to bridge the gap back onto the bunch we were lucky to have the help of a com motorbike pace us back up. I tried to get Kate into a good position for the bunch kick but it was mega dodgy & she wasn’t feeling too good after her earlier expenditure of energy. Finished 33^rd, got recovery bars & coca-cola then cycled back to the digs for a very late dinner of cereal & soup. Stage 3 was a long distance of 138km with two major danger points which involved two bridges which meant mega wind! Rain started to fall on us on the start line which got pretty heavy. I Managed to get a good start & didn’t take me long to work myself through the bunch to near the front before the narrow roads along with road furniture began after the neutralized zone where the pace would pick up. By the time we got to the first bridge is was blowing a gale & absolutely hosing it down. Visual distance was reduced to two wheels in front of you which made it really tough with bikes riding at an angle in the wind. It wasn’t till the second bridge the race finally blew apart & my legs were drained of energy. I couldn’t make the first group or the second group & was struggling to hang in on the third! Not good times with more than 80km to go!! The only thing that kept me going was my little desert that we got from our soigneur, Kase (a wee roll with some sort of custard in the middle). It might not seem like much but when you’re really struggling on the bike with mega crosswinds & soaked all the way through it’s like a little piece of heaven. I went to unwrap it from the foil when a parked auto was on the left. So I shouted out to the bunch (in Dutch obviously for the few sentences I do now) & it was knocked out my hands with only one bite out it!!! A breakdown was about to happen when a Scotty team mate Ewing handed me her wee desert & the world was good again. That’s when we hit the dyke section which was elevated pretty high & on your right was the sea. It was soo hard just trying to stay up right along that section never mind riding in a bunch with sand pelting your legs & face. There were a few riders that ended up in the sand which meant they lost contact with the bunch. It’s the first time I’ve ever ridden at such an angle on the bike riding in a straight line! Two Scot’s done an awesome job trying to shelter me in the last 6km to the finish which seem to work because in the last 3km I just about managed to make the break from our group before the finish. After a tough weekend of racing I finished in the 50s on GC which I was more than pleased with from the 96^th mark last year.

Next on the list is the British RR Champs. Most of you will have heard the story of how only 2 of 8 Scottish rides actually completed a full lap of the 7mile circuit. I travelled down with Kate & Marco the afternoon before having dinner on the way down as we weren’t too bothered about riding the circuit beforehand. A horrid breakfast of 6AM greeted us 2.5hrs before the roll out of the permanence where it was a long cycle out to the actually circuit to the start. We went through the bit of the circuit (which was pretty lumpy) & I wasn’t looking forward to this race. Kate did get a heads up about riding a compact (from a sarcastic txt) the night before. I remember Huge Porter announcing over the tannoy that “this has got to be the hardest testing circuit” which is something I don’t need to hear on the start line. Half way round the lap after being dropped on the uphill chasing downhill probably 75kmph+ coming round right hand corner carnage was all over the road. It was a quick decision to hit the riders +car or head for the green. So I went for the greenery, got out the bushes looking for my bike & here Kate comes round the corner skidding the back wheel. Next thing I remember I was lying back in the bushes where I looked to my right & seen a Scottish rider lying in the same bush. It has to be the most horrible noise screaming break blokes, girls screaming & then hearing them hitting the deck! Oh & how could you forget the burning smell of rubber! The race was stopped for over an hour to pick up riders from the road either to be put into to an ambulance or com’s cars to bring riders back to the strip. Kate was unlucky & had to be taken into hospital for x-rays where she got the all clear. We had to stay in the hilliest place in Britain till after the men’s race as we were trapped in on the course then headed back up the road for the well worth weekend of racing!

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