Race Face

My relationship with Zwift is one of those toxic ones where you wind each other up, hate been together and when you do finally split you drift back together again and you repeat it over and over again seemingly wasting your life. It is well documented I’ve fallen out of love with Zwift numerous times and it’s a boring tale so all I will say about it this time is that at the moment it’s all good!

On the other hand, my relationship with Wahoo X System has gone south and we’ve drifted apart. Probably due to things being a bit too intense between us before Christmas.

I think the reason for all these relationship woes and turmoil is I’ve got an itch to scratch. I need to race again.

Fact: Zwift isn’t real racing.

I retired from real-life racing some years ago. My last race was a damp squib. I’d entered my first LVRC Race. I’d trained. I’d built myself some superlight wheels and gone tubeless for the first time ever. It was on. We rolled out to start the race, the flag dropped and I attacked, went clear, rode around a simple, innocuous corner and my front wheel washed out and I crashed. Fucked my wheels, fucked my cleats, fucked my new club kit, fucked my back. And that was that. All I have as a reminder are tarmac stains on the shorts I use on the turbo now.

LVRC = League of Veteran Racing Cyclists which is now called British Masters Racing. It’s age group racing for the more mature rider

For a few years after that I said to myself I’d pick up cyclocross again when I turned 50 because Dan would be old enough to stay at home or come with me and watch. That’s passed now but watching the Pro cross races this winter has really made me want to have a go again and thanks to my friend Mr Paul Berry and his club Redditch R&PCC they are staging some summer cross races locally. It’s perfect for me. I can ride there and back, smash myself to bits for an hour and ride home with my itch scratched.

It’s in June, so plenty of time to train. Can’t wait!