Start of the yearly affair.

I must be in love. Its an infatuation. I have no choice in the matter. Theres no backing out now. Its a little out of control. This weekend will see the start of it all. I'll find myself in that state of mind, an opiate-like trance in a random carpark up country, waiting for my rendezvous with the most passionate creature I've ever encountered. Hopefully she'll be kind to me. But the reality is often different. Like the good looking dead-cert you are throwing all your charm at in the night club, only for the lights to come on and her to turn into Godzilla; bike racing is seldom straight forward and never easy. If it was we'd all be winners and podium-girl-kissing experts. Yup, racing can be ugly. It takes a lot of love and passion to show up, get a hiding, then go home and plan the same for next week. But there are ways to get a good start, things, and people, to avoid. ******************It all starts in the wee hours of the night before; You need as much of your gear ready, prep done before you get near the race itself. Have your gear stacked in order of putting it on, have your number already pinned tight,your helmet should have a cap and gels in it, your shoes sitting beside it. Try to pack the car, Honda 50, bus or whatever your transport the night before. Spirit away toilet paper somewhere too, pre-race nerves often affect your insides in fun ways. And using your new gloves to wipe your butt is always a false economy. **************Packing your bike away the night before is practical too in that it stops you looking at it, tinkering with it, raising the saddle a fraction of a mill or tightening something just enough to shear a bolt and cause a mild anxiety attack, call to Care-Doc and fears for your mental health as you crawl around on all fours looking for a bottle-cage bolt in the shed at 2 A.M. Get your ass to your LBS and get it sorted and leave it be! *****************Next, try not to be too friendly. Shooting the breeze in the car park and catching up with all your auld pals can seriously damage your chances of doing a warm-up. You find yourself belting out the road trying to do a 40 minute warm-up in 15 and gasping like an Austin Healy in the Alps. And then you are dropped. **************Bottles. Too many bottles is always better than 'Ah the curse of the hairy camels on it!' as you take out the bike and admire it's lightness, only for it to slowly dawn on you as to why. Put the bottles on the bike in the car, put a large bottle of water in your bag, have a spare bottle for the warm up and bobs your uncle. If you are uber-organised you might have a to-do/ to-bring list and keep it in your gear bag so you can use it for every event. ***************Tyre pressure. Are you one of those gobshites that asks everyone around you for a track pump? Stop being a figure of hate and get yourself together. When you ask for a pump you are eating into another rider's prep/ warm-up. Its not fun for them. Multi-tool? Same. Bring your own. Why not pump your tyres slightly over the mark the night before? Maybe not the tubs, but your clinchers for sure! The idea is to tick off as many boxes that lessen your stress levels as possible. *******************And what about the pressure? The other pressure. Try to stay away from it all. Personally, if a race is due to start at 11 A.M. I try to get a warm up and switch off and saunter back as close to kick-off as possible. It stops the stupid stuff; Getting cold, or listening to the gimp [every race has one] who wants to tell you he is flying, how he isn't training but did 5000km over the winter and why he didn't win the last race or how they 'could have gone to Belgium' if they'd wanted. Unnecessary, head-filling shite. They'll be dropped faster than grease outside a kebab shop but will have left you unable to concentrate. No, go do that warm up and get your head together all by yourself. *************The Hype; its a simple fact of cycling life; If someone is going on about doing little training and hoping to hang on, they've actually been doing the sneaky spins, getting out with different cyclists during the week, bringing the bike in the car to work and sneaking in rides at lunch or after and blaming traffic for getting home late, never telling their team mates the truth. And the ones that tell you about all the numbers they are hitting, sustaining and surpassing, numbers, numbers, cycling bingo... are too busy looking at their Garmins to notice the break filtering off the front. Just don't listen and get out and race!************* After the fact; Pack the bike, put on the compression socks, have a drink and go home. Just like coming out of a Leaving Cert exam, theres nothing to be gained by a post mortem, unless its your own team that messed up. You can work it all out on the cycle/ drive home and plan your next moves in the silence of your own head. Stay off the kakao. Some cyclists highest heart-rates and best moves are kept for group chats. ***********Afterglow; Go home, look at the bike, enjoy what you have done. Think of next week.