Day Out in Dottignies!

April 12 2010


After my first win for my new team Horizon Fitness, in the 1st round of the Rudy Project, I headed out to our Belgium team house to prepare for the GP Dottignies. Our Director Sportif, Stefan, had arranged for me to ride on a guest place with a Danish team called Team OCK. It was to be a small team of 4 riders for the race, but they were a fantastic group to work with and we had fun with our preparations.

I headed over to Dottignies to join up with the team and do what proved to be an all important recce of the race course. The route, for both the starting loop of 50km and the 7 laps of the 10km finishing circuit, took us through some narrow lanes and also along some very poor road surface. I began to panic that I wouldn’t be able to hang on to the bars over all the bumps and holes, until Barney, my husband, came up with the clever plan of using a pedal strap to attach me to the bars and give me more of a chance should I hit any holes or rough surface whilst in the race at speed.

On the day of the race the morning seemed to drag on and we were all itching to get to the town centre and start with the preparation of pinning numbers and arranging our food and feeding strategy.

Thankfully the poor weather of the days leading up to the race subsided and although the wind was still a major force in the race, the dry roads made the race far better than it would have been, given the sometimes twisty nature of the route.

By the time we headed to the start, the road was already two thirds full of riders and there was still 15 minutes to go to the start. We squeezed our way through and tried to get as far forward as possible as the rest of the riders filled in from behind. About 155 riders took to the start, 3 times more riders than I have ever ridden with before and it was certainly a crazy race from start to finish. The roads were wide at the start, but we still had to negotiate our way through some bottleneck turns, through villages and then out on the single track country lanes that took us to the only real climb in the race. Sure enough there was an early crash, although the reason remains a mystery and only one person actually hit the deck.

The climb proved to be a strong part of the race for me, as it gave me a good chance to work my way through the field so instead of being in the back third I was in the top half. We were all strung out as we descended and then there was the long chase back on before the short section of cobbles and some more single track twisty roads.

As we made our way back towards Dottignies, the motorbike told us there was a break up the road and they had 38 seconds as we crossed the start/finish straight to begin the 7 finishing laps.

The pace didn’t slow down and the almost 40kph average we had held through the big lap, remained the average throughout the finishing laps, despite the gradual climb away from the town and then strong headwind section back to the start/finish area and feed zone.

The peleton kept pulling and the gap to the lead riders came down pretty quick. There was an incident with a motorbike and then another crash on the ride out of the town but the peleton remained fairly big at about 70 riders. The danger of a course with a bumpy surface is bidons getting rattled out of cages and I was nearly taken out by one rolling away from the riders in front of me.

The laps came down pretty quick and there was always an acceleration as we hit the downhill, headwind section. That road suddenly narrowed and then widened again, which proved tricky as riders were always trying to move up. I stayed pretty much stuck at the back, unable to work out how to get through the maize in front but still strong enough not to get dropped as the elastic effect caused us trouble.

In the end I rolled over the line in 65th position. I had not found a wheel to follow all race and was never really out of the wind, always chasing, always trying but failing to move up. My inexperience really showed and I’d had an amazingly hard training ride at the same time!! Unfortunately the 3 girls I was riding with were gapped after the climb so there was no opportunity to get together and try and work towards getting to the front.

Apart from me learning loads about the way a race like that works, it was also great to have my Horizon Fitness team mate, Dani King in the peleton, riding for the GB National team. Dani and I found each other chasing after the descent and were able to work together to get back into the race. I’m sure this early season hard work will set us up well for races with the rest of the team later in the summer.

For now, I’m returning to the UK, there is another round of the National Time Trial series and then I’ll join up with the rest of the Horizon Fitness team as we head to the first round of the women’s team series near Windsor.