Hope Technologies are a wonderfully innovative company in Barnoldswick here in the UK, and anyone who knows anything about mountain bikes will have heard of Hope. Their flagship product line is their range of hydraulic disc brake systems, and Hope have been sponsoring me with their wonderful Mono Minis since 2004.
My sponsorship with Hope is part of their Factory Sponsored Riders programme, providing selected athletes in the UK and abroad with a full range of their fantastic kit. Hope Factory Sponsored riders get their kit custom anodised - bright green for the men and pink for the women. This custom kit is done as a special run and is available to the team riders only. This year there is just one Hope Factory Sponsored female XC racer in the world - lucky old me!
This means my new 3-bolt Pro3 SP pink hub wheels in their Stans 355 hoops are the only ones of their kind in the world.
The 355 rims are not quite as light as the Stans Race 7000 versions, but the integrated hub and rotor system takes some of that weight back, making these wheels competitively light (1450gm per set, including rotors) and very strong and durable. Durability in wheels is especially important in marathon and stage racing, when you don't always know what's around the next corner. They have a rider weight limit of 85kg, but for me at 50kg they are pretty much bombproof.
The matching pink Mono Mini Pro brakeset is also unique (although you can buy a standard Mono Mini in pink).
To find out more about Hope kit go to http://www.hopetech.com/. You can't get these wheels in pink, but you can get the same technology in black.
Recovering from my crash at Dalby has taken a bit longer than expected, but I'm finally starting to feel like I'm back on top of things. We've been making the most of having a couple of weeks off racing to rest and polish up on the mountain biking, with long rides on our local trails here in the Peak, and a day trip to Llandegla in North Wales on Sunday.
On a warm summer evening, there's no place better than Macc Forest on a mountain bike.
This weekend I decided to leave my knobbly tyres at home, missing Round 2 of the British XC Series, and take my Synapse race machine on a 700 mile round trip to the scenic Ayrshire town of Straiton in Scotland for Round 2 of the National Women's Road Race Series.
The race was 71km and after a very slow neutralised start, we climbed out of the town to the very quiet country lanes and the race was on. I tucked in near the front of a reasonably small bunch of 26 women and descended down the roughest roads I've ever ridden, dodging potholes and sailing round sweeping bends that went on for several miles.
The course then took 3 laps round a rolling course, before finally heading back towards Straiton via a 5 mile climb. It felt like there was a lot more descending than climbing during the 3 laps, as the hills were short and the descents very gradual. In the back of my mind during the whole race was the final climb to the finish and I made an effort to ensure I had enough left in the tank to make it up the final climb fast.
From the start there was a constant flow of attacks, particularly from the Max Gear RT team, who were kitted up with team radios and one after another the 4 of them would attack, get reeled in by the bunch, then the next one would go. Other attacks came from Lynn Hamel who made more of an effort to get away than anyone, but the bunch stayed together until the final climb.
There was one steep hill in the lap where inevitably, attacks were made every time, and it came straight after a very fast descent into a right hand bend covered with loose gravel. A lot of my competitors were hesitant descending here, and so I made sure I was at the front of the bunch before the descent to avoid any crashes or get held up. The bunch spread out a lot down this descent so the riders at the back had a lot of work to do to catch back up, and I could see it was taking it's toll on some of them, while I preserved as much energy as possible.
The final 5 mile climb wasn't as severe as I'd anticipated, with my mountain biking legs quite used to climbing. At about the halfway mark an attack went, was chased down, and then the bunch split in two. I felt comfortable up the climb and sat in the front bunch of 12 waiting for the sprint finish which was drawing ever closer.
I knew the finish was along this climb, but it all looked the same to me and I wasn't actually sure where exactly the finish line was. I had assumed we had a couple more minutes climbing to do when the front riders started sprinting. I reacted quickly, picked up the pace and then I saw the chequered flag. I sprinted into 3rd position but let myself down with a poor gear choice; I was under-geared and couldn't accelerate past Ella Sadler-Andrews in 1st and Claire Thomas in 2nd. All too quickly the line rushed under our wheels and I finished in 3rd position. It was frustrating, because my legs had a lot left in them, but I am pleased with the improvements that I've made and the lessons I'm learning in only a handful of races that I've done so far on the road.
It's one of the core prinicples of effective bike racing, but sometimes we get it wrong. It's been a while since I had a crash I couldn't get up from, but I made it a classic over-the-bars-flying-through-the-air head stack down the Medusa Drop at the second round of the British Mountain Bike Series in Dalby on Sunday.
I'm mad with myself for crashing, as up until that point on the final lap, everything had been going pretty well. I had another poor start after missing my pedal on the startline (must practice start drills!) but was steadily working my way through the field and had made it to third place with one lap to go. I had second placed Mel Spath (Cycleways Torq) in my sights and I was feeling strong, and working hard to reel her in on the final lap.
The new Dalby course was one of the most technically challenging XC courses I've ridden, and I was confident after practice that I could do well on it, as I'm (usually) pretty good with drops and steep stuff. However, I remember thinking it was the sort of course that would catch people out in the final laps when fatigue set in and concentration started to lapse a bit, and I must have jinxed myself because that's exactly what happened to me.
I landed on my head and left shoulder, but luckily my Catlike Whisper Pro helmet did its job and took the worst of the hit. No broken bones, just a dead left arm, and no major head trauma, just a few dizzy spells and a cracking headache that I'm holding off with an industrial dose of Ibuprofen.
The race was won by visiting Australian Katherine O'Shea (Torq Aus), who went off from the gun and got a clean run right through to the end. Sue Clarke (SiS) was also putting in some very fast laps, but a puncture on lap 3 put her out of contention for the podium. Mel held on to her 2nd place, and Lily Matthews (100% Me) inherited the final podium spot, after very nearly mowing me down and finishing me off I was being attended by medics at the side of the track.
Coach Andy Patterson raced in the Sport category at lunchtime, after missing a spot in the oversubscibed Masters race later in the afternoon. He finished 8th in a field of 50 starters, after working his way up from the back of the start grid, railing all the berms on the big Scalpel (Andy loves berms) and holding off some of the smaller racers with his condor-like elbows!
Oli Beckinsale (Giant) managed to hold off the other visiting Aussie Daniel McConnell (Torq Aus), with Brit rider David Fletcher taking third in the Elite men's race.
Our team mates were not with us this weekend - Annabel has had a fever for the past couple of days and decided not to race, while Ruth has had a family bereavement to deal with. Nadine opted for a road race up in Straiton, Scotland, and finished third, which is her first podium in a national series road race. We'll have a race report from Nadine up soon.
Our next event is Round 3 of the BMBS down at Margam Park in South Wales, which means we have three weeks in which to recover and rebuild. We will all be there, and hopefully staying upright!
This was one of our big road races of the season, and we've all been looking forward to it. As this was a team event, we'd bolstered our team with the addition of Paula Moseley and Alli Northcott, and both proved themselves great choices time and again over the course of the weekend.
Day 1 - Sunday 3rd May 2009 Stage 1 - Team Time Trial 9.7km
The whole team had to start but only the top four times counted towards the team score. Apart from Annabel, none of us had ever done a TTT before, and we'd never ridden together as a team. I start off on the front, and took off fairly steady to ensure we all got clipped in and moving together. Alli (who had never done any kind of TT) took the next turn and went off at a hell of a pace, then missed the last wheel and disappeared, so we were a rider down within the first 500m. We couldn't afford to lose another rider, so we rode carefully. Nadine struggles with TTs and Annie and I jollied her along, while Paula with her bar extensions did the extra share on the front. We finished in 15:12, which put us in 5th place and 38 seconds down on the leaders going into Stage 2.
Stage 2 - Keysoe Road Race 80km
Our rough plan was for Nadine to try for the sprint primes, while Annie and I would try for the hill primes, and Alli and Paula would cover the breaks and look after Nadine. It all went out the window. The bunch of 80 riders were crammed into one side of the road around tight country lanes and it look two of the five laps for me to work my way to the front, and that was only because I had fearless Alli working for me, making gaps where there were none.
Things were settling down a bit, when the crash happened. I didn't see it start, but I saw riders go down on my left, then a rider hit the deck right in front of me. I don't know how I didn't crash. Eight riders went down in all, with one broken ankle and a set of snapped handlebars. The race carried on, albeit a bit shaken up.
The hill sprint was not really a hill so much as a short rise, so it favoured the sprinters over the pure climbers in any case. Nonetheless, I managed to line myself up for the second hill prime and crossed the line third, for a few bonus points. I then chanced a second place in one of the sprint primes, as I happened to be one of three riders who had gotten away from the bunch back up the road.
The group inevitably came back together, and it was Paula who got a break with Julie Cook (Squadra Donne) and got away on the last lap. They were chased and caught by Natalie Cresswick (Twickenham CC), who eventually won, with Julie second and Paula third. Meanwhile, Alli and I managed to keep the rest of the bunch together, and I went for the bunch sprint up the hill to the finish securing the fourth spot. Result! This put Paula second on GC as she'd clawed back some of the lost time from the TTT by finishing in the break. I was 12th on GC thanks to my sprint efforts, and Alli lost no time finishing in the bunch behind me. Annie had bad stomach cramps and struggled through to finish, while Nadine finished behind the main bunch.
Day Two - Monday 4th May 2009
Stage 3 - Individual Time Trial 3.37km
A really short TT, with a gradual descent, a gradual climb and a flat. I think the organisers kept the time trials deliberately short so that the advantage gained by those with proper TT bikes and aero kit would not dictate the outcome of the whole event. We rode the TTs on standard road bikes, although Paula had a set of tri-bars and clocked about 10 seconds faster than me and Annie (on the same time to the second) with Alli and Nadine about 10 seconds slower again. The result dropped Paula dropped back to third on GC and we knew we'd have to race tactics in the afternoon road race if we wanted to keep or better that place. There was a "Combative" prize to be awarded, and we were gunning for it.
Stage 4 - Cranfield Road Race 71km
Now we were looking after Paula. Our team stayed on the front and marked Julie Cook and Danni King, the other two GC contenders. The only way for Paula to improve her position was to get in a break with one of the other two, or break away on her own, but there were just seconds in it, and we couldn't afford to let any breaks go without Paula. Annie started things off with attacks off the front in the first lap, and I followed it up with a long attack that saw me off the front for about 10 minutes. Then Alli went. We kept attacking and chasing everything that moved. I even got another sprint prime, securing 3rd place in the sprint competition, which is a bit of an outrage as I'm not a sprinter at all.
Then the next disaster happened. I'd allowed myself to drop back into the bunch after my sprint, when a group of three horseriders decided to take their chances and ride down the road into the peloton. We were trying to keep left but there were 80 of us on a narrow country lane. Sure enough, one of the horses spooked and bolted straight into the bunch, scattering riders and bikes in all directions. The front half of the race carried on, while the rest of us were left stranded, unable to get past the panicking horse. The marshalls pulled out the red flag and stopped the race. Thankfully no-one was hurt this time, despite the apparent carnage.
We were re-gridded at the top of the hill to re-start the final lap. A lot of riders were visibly shaken and there were plenty of trembling hands on bars, including mine. We set off for the final lap, but the fight seemed to have gone out of the bunch, like we all just wanted it to be over. It was raining but this stage and the roads were wet. I felt like I was riding just to survive, and I was happy to let my team mates fight it out at the front, as it was clear no breaks would go. Paula made a few last attempts to get away, but the bunch just strung out behind her. In the end she tired herself out and didn't have anything for the final sprint, which was won by Laura Trott (Impsport A). Paula finished in the bunch and held her 3rd place on GC. It was the result we'd been working for.
The team event was won by Squadra Donne, the composite team that included both Julie Cook and Danni King. MaxGear finished second, largely on the strength of a good TTT at the start, while Altura Patterson Training finished third. Three third places! Not bad at all!
No Combative prize was awarded in the end. Maybe it went to the horse.
Big thanks to Alli and Paula - you guys were awesome, and we hope to have you on our team again!
Hope Technologies are a wonderfully innovative company in Barnoldswick here in the UK, and anyone who knows anything about mountain bikes will have heard of Hope. Their flagship product line is their range of hydraulic disc brake systems, and Hope have been sponsoring me with their wonderful Mono Minis since 2004.
