Hup Hup!

First race of the year done and dusted! Phew! Cue tremendous sense of relief at not being pack fodder, a crash victim or worse. OK, I won't get carried away with a virtually flat race, basically a sausage shaped kermesse but still.... I'm a lucky guy to be on a last lap like 2016 and it was nice to find myself fit up in Clonard last Saturday. Of course, turning off the N9 and listening to Google Maps guiding me to the race venue was tougher than the race. Even the American voice hesitated at one point as I took another 'left in 500 metres' and I thought I heard it say 'What d fu...?' in that Alabama drawl. Boreen roads, canals, turf, pick-ups full of pitch-fork wielding yokels...the journey had it all! Arriving at the race was a relief. Because I thought for a while I was gonna be someone's pig-roast. Phew, made it! The fact that the route was pretty much out and back was another relief, as my gyroscope was still spinning from the drive. Signed on, bike out, getting sorted one hour before the start felt great. Usually my warm-up is the double espresso grabbed while exiting the house. So I was surprised to find myself getting a nice early warm-up and even more surprised to find it way colder than I had allowed for. Rocketing back to the carpark I emptied the kit bag and found an extra thermal vest, making it two and a half thermals, a race jersey, buff, thermal three quarters, two pairs of socks, overshoes, hat and lid. And crab-claw gloves. And more DeepHeat than a geriatric clinic. So all my muscle definition [!] was negated by a rotund, lard-butt with the aerodynamics of a Skip Lorry. There was a cold crosswind and I honestly expected to be hanging. But it was like going back in time to yesteryear, an initial acceleration, a stall, a sportif pace,[If Jacques Anquetil had been there he'd have lit a cigarette, quaffed a flute of Champagne and stopped to kiss female bystanders]. Then there was some headless handling; I marvel that a bloke can be told there's 94 in a race and yet he can sit in tenth place and swing his back wheel left and right as if he is last man but really he is causing a series of percussions back through the bunch. All the way back to the Fred at the back. Juggling a gel and bottle with a gear change at that precise moment. Cue very dirty chamois and shot nerves. Anyhoo, a nice break got up the road and was kept at a minute for ages and then came back, and then thankfully the pace ramped up for the sprint. Clubs swarmed to the front in numbers as if it was Cipollini's heyday, yet disappeared like a ghost ship in the fog of the last kilometre. WTF? Don't get me started! I found myself snug in the top [magic] fifteen through the myriad roundabouts and at a glance behind, the bunch was spread out for hundreds of metres. I opened up full gas a little late down the left, got baulked by a blown rider on the inside and a shimmy from the right, cursed my luck, went the long way around, reloaded and snuck into the top twenty. I probably would have got tenth at a push but that was all. As the 200 metre mark hove into view the sprint was already 200 metres old. More importantly was that I got nicely sealed into that vacuum around tenth-fifteenth place that forces you along in the group with the least amount of force from you. The Dyson. And the roundabouts were a lot less hazardous as a result. My best thoughts were smiling all the way back to the car with relief and the overwhelming feeling of safety in the race. You see, the race filtered out through village after village and I can't remember a junction or slip road NOT marshalled. And the motorbike marshals/ commissaires did some job, keeping the eejits inside the white line and always having a prescence that was incredibly safe and effective from my vantage point inside the peleton. And it all sounded like we were in Tirreno-Adriatico, the buzz of high revving rice rockets pulsing up and down the bunch like protons in C.E.R.N. Ah yes its good to calm pack-mongers riding the outside like their name is Jean-Claude, forcing all the rest of us to squeeze our butt cheeks tight at the sight of an oncoming vehicle! I handled myself well, [I am from 'Rosh' afterall!], stayed in the top 30 pretty much the whole race, never felt under pressure. And riders came and went which is always a good sign. I Concentrated too which is my achilles heel. I usually end up day-dreaming about coffee or wine or how un-aerodynamic the meerkat on the aerodynamic bike beside me is, with an outsize head and the positioning of a squirrel on bonzai , or perhaps just how hairy-legged some neanderthal A4s can be. What seemed shocking was the number of racers that stayed in the back half of the race and never came out to play. Pilot fish swinging on the Shark. Theres always something to be gained by having a go or handling the pace up front. Not a lot to be had at the back except an example of the physics involved in a bungee cord. You can use many expletives to describe me but 'scrubber' or 'hider' ain't one. I don't hang at the back. I'm also terrible at maths but a 4 hour round-trip for 2 hours cycling at the rear with the heart-rate of a hibernating bear just don't fly. Its a happy start to what I hope is a good, long season. And with the good lads heading up through the club over the Winter it'd be sweet if we can kick a few asses using a team to good effect! More importantly, I'm healthy and gagging to race again. Lets go race!