'Dropped' - by Tony Shoesmith

"Dropped’ by Tony Shoesmith

Peterborough CC Road Race - 3/4cat, 55miles, - Sunday 10th September

Being dropped is not a new experience for me, my mum regularly recalls the time when at the tender age of 1 I slipped through the hands of my grandmother and landed with a thud on the kitchen lino, I was also dropped at the Lechlade training weekend this year and it is a regular occurrence on a Saturday and Sunday club ride so as I sat on my bike at the start of the Peterborough CC 55 mile road race on Sunday a feeling of inevitability hung over me.

The race was made up of 60 riders who were a mixture of 3rd and 4th Cat. Registration proved that it was unlikely there were any other riders less clued up about road racing than myself when the organiser asked for my licence or membership!!! Doh, anyway I paid the £10 for a day licence and collected my race numbers and was raring to go. The race was 5 laps of an 11 mile loop along country lanes; it was mainly flat with a few undulations.
The early pace wasn’t too bad and after 5 minutes I had exceeded my expectations and was still in the group (it’s important to have goals ;-), in fact I felt comfortable and was loving the buzz, I had a rider inches in front and behind and either side of me, my front wheel touched another riders wheel and i apologised sheepishly, the group was gliding along effortlessly at 30mph (a speed that I struggle to reach on my own). As we came towards the end of the first lap we turned a corner and came to a slight uphill section, I realised I was in too big a gear, by the time I changed down I was losing spaces, in fact it seemed as though I was on an escalator going down and everyone else was on an escalator going up, either side of me riders were flying past me, by the time we crested the hill there was a gap of about 3 bike lengths between me and the guy in front, I thought there were other riders behind me but when I glanced back the commissaries car was right behind me, I was at the back.
The next section was a mile or so slightly downhill into the wind, I rode as hard as I could to get back in the group but the gap got bigger and bigger, by the time we reached a sharp left turn I was approximately 25 metres behind and the commissaire beeped his horn and waved me out of the way, he drove past me and that was it, I was out of the race. I had lasted 1 lap, 27 minutes of racing and I was dropped. I asked one of the race marshals if I had to stop and he said I could carry on if I wanted to so I rode 3 more laps, during my solo ride I caught up with fellow North Roader Jeff Robinson who had lasted far longer in the group than I had, in fact I remember seeing him when I was still in the group and he was riding strongly at the front but he had been unable to ride for a few weeks prior to the race because of a knee injury so he had lost a bit of fitness. We watched the sprint finish together then rode back to the HQ; we talked about the race and agreed to go back next year with the aim of finishing in the bunch at least.

It was a great experience, I now had a taste for road racing and I liked it, now the real training starts, roll on next season.