The Guildford Town Centre Races
The evening of Wednesday 3rd July was all systems go at the Guildford Town Centre Races, with Alba Development Road Team racing in the Elite Women’s category as part of the British Cycling National Circuit Series, and members of our Parcours Ambassador Team also toeing the start line.
In the Elite race, it was a double win, as Parcours sponsored the race, which saw Alba rider Eilidh Shaw take the victory. Shaw also recently came second at the British National Crit Championships.
Crit racing can be a great way to develop fitness, skills and confidence and also motivating. You don’t necessarily need to be fast, fit or talented to race, for many people the main rival is yourself, and there are plenty of levels of races you can enter. A race can help as it takes place at a specific time and place (so can give you a focus), and crit races tend to be shorter duration, so could be a good option for those cyclists trying to balance family, work and training.
Parcours Ambassadors, Daniel Kanmere was also taking part in the Guildford Crit Race. Daniel took part in the Cat 3 race and takes us through his experience in Guildford and some insights into crit racing.
Guildford was an amazing experience. The atmosphere was filled with bikes, cheers, smiles and all sorts of racing every hour. A lot of people turned up and the cheers were so loud.
Criterium (Crit) take place on a short closed circuit and feature multiple turns. The level of difficulty varies by different factors – for example
- how technical the circuit is
- how long of the race is
- it's elevation,
- how exposed it is to the wind among others.
These different factors also influence the strategies people choose to use to race a particular circuit. For instance, a less technical circuit will have fewer people fighting for front line positions at the start as the race is at less risk of the race splitting early as a result of less corners.
The Guildford Crit is one of the National Crit Series, (Otley and Ilkley are too). The National Series races are unique as they feature a race of the top cyclists in the country, racing in the Elite, Cat 1 and Cat 2 events and multitudes of people turn up to watch. I am a Cat 3 rider, so I took part in the 'Local Heros' race which is a Cat 3 only race.
My race was at 18:45hrs. The sun was still out and the course was bright. Having not raced Guildford before, I studied any online material such as YouTube videos and a course maps from people who had done it before. It is a four corner crit featuring 1 hairpin. The surface was a mixture of cobbles through the town center and tarmac on the rest of the course around. Knowing this, it was evident that the race would start extremely quickly as the hairpin was the 1st corner and splits would be decided on the corners.
Throughout the day, I fuelled well with foods rich in carbs and salts. Before the race, I had 2 Precision Fuel & Hydration gels and I was ready to go to the start line. One of the main aims was to get a good starting position but by the time I arrived at the start line 15mins before the start, over 30 riders were already there ready so position-wise, it was not so great.
Once the whistle was blown, the race started really fast to the hairpin corner. There was a lot of braking and being caught at the back made everything worse as I nearly came to a stand-still due to a crash ahead. The strategy at first was to get to the front of the race as fast as possible but the crash caused a split and the objective shifted to making it to the front of the split and use my technical abilities in the corners as well as working with others to bridge back. It was an explosive effort out of every corner. By the time I got to the front of my group, due to spending a lot of energy as well as lack of fitness and conditioning, I didn't have enough to bridge the gap to the front group. It was too late and I decided to settle in a group and roll through the race.
It was a tough race in general. And even though my fitness and conditioning was not at a good level, I was happy to give it a go with all I had at the moment finishing 25th out of 59 riders.
I'll definitely be back next year well trained and with good race fitness and conditioning to have a go at it.
