London Bike Show

So, with some considerable irony, my late night zero degree centigrade bike build extravaganza left me waking up at the weekend with a mental resting heart rate, a nice sore throat and general feeling like shit-ness. BRILLIANT. Played it safe and bailed on the team ride on the Saturday and gave up my place in the Bike Show crit the following day to my teammate Jasmine.

However I still went along to the show, self-relegated from racing to a more "being there with safety pins and allen keys" role.

HAVE NO FEAR I HAVE HEXAGONAL METAL OBJECTS

[Photo credit Adrian https://twitter.com/alien8]

As you can see I GOT A NEW CAP. And, despite me sort of thinking I can pull of cycling caps, I still can't. It won't stop me wearing them, but I know deep down I can't pull them off and never will. SIGH. I just don't have the cheekbones or am not Italian enough or something.

Bryony's gloves. Bit overtly feminine for my taste :D

Jasmine, with racing bandana and a really craply pinned on number (my fault, out of practice!) 

RAILTON FIX HELMET STRAPS

Doing deals on the Aprire stand...

...yiiiiis

With the obligatory "OH SHIT MY BIKE DOESN'T WORK" panic a few minutes before the race out the way (resolved thanks to my allen keys), the three riders from Velosport-Pasta Montegrappa got away round the course. And by course I mean "barriered off bit of the arena". It was basically: straight  - U turn on slippy surface - U turn on slippy surface - straight. Repeat. A lot. 

Bryony

Lydia

Jasmine

 Bryony got unlucky when someone came down in front of her in the first few laps <OOF>

Yep, nowhere to go...

Yep, going down...

OOF, down :(

With Bryony out the running, a lead group of four went clear out the front, containing both Jasmine and Lydia. Hurrah! Lydia forged ahead and the remaining three became two and the race was decided then; one rider out ahead gradually putting in more and more distance between her and the pack and Jasmine in the chasing two, making the other girl do all the chasing like the pro she is :)

At the finish, Jasmine nips round the Trek Bicycle Coventry rider (Maxine Filby) to clinch a 1-2 for our team. Great success!

L-R: Jasmine Dotti, Lydia Boylan, Maxine Filby

Other highlights of the Bike Show included making multiple passes past the Clif stall (protein bar YES PLEASE) and buying more "Friend of Herne Hill Velodrome" stuff (I love that colour scheme SO MUCH and they are lovely people).

THINGS :D

I also recently passed quite a cool milestone on my Garmin the other day:

So I got my Garmin in March 2012? 12 000 miles in 2 years isn't too bad in my opinion, especially when you consider this includes no commuting miles at all (at least 5 miles a day) and no miles done on my track bike (which probably added up to quite a lot last year).

Got my first race FOR REAL THIS TIME on Sunday (North Road Hardriders - basically a hilly and technical 25 mile time trial) I will be unpacking the COURAGE LEGS from their box (along with my moustache TT helmet) brushing off the packing peanuts and removing random bits of sellotape stuck to them, and unleashing seven shades of hell fire fucking hell badgering rage all over that. Really looking forward to it, which I'm taking to be a good thing. Who knows, given my current level of blog writing form you may even get ANOTHER post out it.

I am spoiling you all with this "more than one post a year" stuff! :D