Jim's Training

 

Training Ride Three

Saturday, 17th January 2009
Cottingham Circuit

Even more riders around the circuit today, enough in fact to make five groups. Although I like to keep the groups apart, it's much more productive in terms of individual work loads, it was inevitable that the groups would get together today. Inevitable, perhaps, that many would finish the last lap together.

Group one comprised Rob Stones, Paul Campbell, Alan Whittaker, Paul Hayward, Mark Robinson, Jodie Brumhead, Les Phillips, John Galbraith, Mick Adams, Sarah Tock, and Stephen Carrigan.

The six riders in group two were Phil Eden, Neil Dean, Graeme Lawton, Paul Kilvington, Mike Kilgour and Christian Colbeck (I think).

Another ten riders in group three were Craig Medcalf, Mark McKeown, Dave Hudson, Steve Macklin, Rob Busby, Mark Philipson, Mark Walker, Jason Young, Chris Goodway and Andy Faichney.

Group four consisted of Paul Hickman, Jason Young, Lee Watson, Mark Ollerenshaw, Matthew Enticknap, and Gareth Taylor (I think).

The scratch group, yet another eight riders, were Matthew Fenton, Richard Moore, Karl Downes, Nathan Wilson, Duncan Putman, Adam Hardy, David Brearley and Peter Fielding-Smith.

With gaps of 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute and 1½ minutes it was impossible to avoid overlaps. and some groups were absorbed before half way round.

Lap times were

	Group One	Group Two	Group Three	Group Four	Group Four
Lap One	9:00	7:48	8:15	8:28	7:30
Lap Two	8:45	7:37	7:15	6:37	6:31
Lap Three	8:20	7:25	6:58	6:40	6:25
Lap Four	7:40	7:38	6:47	6:37	6:26
Lap Five	7:33	7:10			6:16
Lap Six	7:47				6:27
Lap Seven	7:25				6:25
Lap Eight					5:30

 

I keep saying that there are no individual winners in these training session, you are all virtual winners. I suppose that practising your sprinting may constitute part of training but a crash like there was at the completion of the last lap is not worth taking a risk for. When two riders went down heavily at the front of the bunch it caused a domino effect and many more followed. I've not been able to contact Jason or Lee who were, I think the most injured. It seems that Jason has a broken collar bone at least, and Lee's clothes were in shreds. If you're going to sprint then please be sensible about it; you must maintain a straight line - the pros come in much faster and in bigger groups and they rarely come down (journalism dramatises those that do). If you want to practice your sprints I would suggest it better to do it in twos or threes - it's much safer. Next week is at Brantigham, a much smaller circuit, and I'd suggest it would be better if the groups that were caught stay together and allow the faster groups to go ahead, Rob Stones did that with his group, and I think group two did that too. Thanks again to Terry and Barry, Don and Les, and Dennis for making it safe on the corners for us.