Backdated - Negative racing and the EKRR

By now, most of Britain will have seen or heard about the disappointing failure of the British men's road squad to bring home a gold, and will be aware, on some level, that this was brought about by a number of other countries 'racing 'negatively' or 'against' GB. It was surprising  to see so little help from Germany, and GB made a big mistake in keeping to their initial tactics when O' Grady went up the road - if the Aussies had needed a sprint finish, they would have been powerful allies to have.

I'll pull back now from the armchair speculation, and get to my point - if such negative racing can prevail when the stakes are so high, what happens when the stakes are low?

So to the East Kilbride Road Race.

It was your standard 50 miles cat 4 race - 3 laps around the Stewarton course. The weather, on par for the summer so far, promised to be disruptive, and most of the chat beforehand was on how waterproof we needed to be.

The lead-out behind the neutral car was a mess of grabbed brakes and surges, with riders' heads down and peaks low as the rain and road spray miasmed ahead of us. Once the car accelerated away, the peleton rushed to stretch its legs up the first climb to white loch, the groups splitting, as ever, under the influence of gravity. I plonked myself neatly in the back third of the lead group as it chased down a breakaway pair, to see how things would unfold.

We rolled pleasantly to the A77, and then stopped. There was no other way to put it. With a slight, but not forbidding, headwind, no-one was willing to put in any work.

I wasn't either, but, then, I wasn't willing to sit at this pace, either. Too many fresh legs would make my life difficult in the final - I would only excel against a similarly tired field. So I did the only thing I could in the situation. I attacked.

In retrospect, this was stupid. As a matter of fact, at the time, it was stupid. It was completely against plan. I am not a flatland rider. I have relatively poor power to drag, especially when compared to power to weight. A flat road, into a headwind, is never a great place to attack, and yet there I went.

Even this makes it sound more premeditated than it was. This is getting so far off track now that in a few paragraphs I'll undoubtedly have to yank the handbrake and pull a u-ey, but, since accidentally getting into breakaways was a recurring theme of the day, I'll go into it in more detail. Here was the actual thought process:

Seriously? 15mph? Now? Sod this.

I rode up on the outside of the group, aiming to pull for a bit, and spotting a solo rider up the road.

You know what, why should I work for these lazy gits?

I put in a tiny bit of extra pace, and instead of pulling in at the head of the line, I ride up, and up, and up onto the soloist's wheel.

Well, that was easy - oh. He's just a kid. We'll never hold out two and a half laps. Well, since I'm up here, might as well do a bit of work...

After far too long, and after picking up a few other vaguely-interested break men, the real break went by. This one was going places, and I charged to try and bridge, all too aware that I was towing three other guys. I got to the wheel, but that was it. Spent. There was no way I was going to be able to keep that pace. I apologised to the guys on my wheel and sat up, but they were either too bushed themselves or didn't get the message, and didn't come around. So we let them go, and the bunch came back.

I played with them on the hill, aware that the KOM points would go to the break. Again, I accidentally popped off the front, but at least had the good sense this time to sit up and fall back. I would need the bunch to chase down this break. If only they'd start working...

They didn't, so I did. In the end, it was probably only half a dozen disparate riders who did any real work in that race; frequently left dangling on the front of the pack as no-one would come around. I was furious by the last lap - 'what are we, racing for second?'. Again, I messed around with the bunch on the hill, sitting up and tootling past the front-runners who were attacking the line as it it were the finish. Again, I found myself in a break, which I went with until the clunch road, but it was a half-hearted affair. I wanted to use the bunch to bring our man back.

I shouldn't have been so foolish.

We didn't get our man, and, exhausted by my chasing efforts, I didn't have enough for the last sprint hill and creaked up at the back of the pack. So it goes.