The Lincoln GP is one of the toughest races on the premier calendar here in the UK and it attracts some of the best riders from the UK and the continent who all want to bag the win. Team Probikekit.com had 5 riders in their team this year, James Smith, Chris Lobb, Richard Wilkinson, Jamie Howard and Nick Boost.

There was a strong turnout from Rapha Condor, Pendragon Kalas, Motorpoint, Sky, Endura, Sigma Sport, Raleigh and the Irish National team.

The Lincoln GP is 11 laps around Lincoln with a cobbled climb up through the town centre – the climb about 500 yards of bumpy hell with the best chance for survival being the gutter at the edges of the road. Riding this climb is tough because it’s such a bone shaker, you need to ride the gutter if possible and with such tiny gutter space, you need to be out front to get a chance – otherwise it’s just a massive cycle-jam. After the climb the course flattens out and winds around through the top of town, the pace picking up instantly as the riders hit the big ring the second their off the cobbles and hurtling on to the flat sections and decent out of Lincoln.

This race is not for the faint hearted either, blink and your out the back, the only chance to stay on is to ride hard and stay as far up to the front as you can. Getting stuck too far back means getting binned on the climb as there’s only a few places on the course to make up places as the pace picks up rapidly after the climb.

The atmosphere with the cheering crowds around the course is amazing, along with the closed roads it gives this race a real continental flavour.

For most of the Probikekit riders, this was the first Premier Calendar so it was a trial by fire. Richard had ridden it before and rode as the team captain, Chris Lobb rolled his tub on the 2^nd lap and came off – no serious injury, then James and Jamie missed the big moves after getting caught up in the mayhem and got black flagged on the 8^th climb. Wilkinson finished in the 4^th bunch on the road – a hard, hard race with a fantastic atmosphere. Better luck next year

Results:

1^st Chris Newton (Rapha Condor)

2^nd Phil Lavery (Ireland)

3^rd Simon Richardson (Sigma Sport Specialised)

Unfortunately our 4th cat trooper Chris was not in the race this year and nor will he ever be. His claim that he should be allowed on the grounds of his being born in the county of Lincolnshire have luckily for him fallen on deaf ears. He would most certainly have suffered miserably and it could have put him off cycling for life. More from our weekend warrior soon.

Tales from the back of the pack – Is an honest account of life as a weekend warrior and my homage to the trials and tribulations faced by the majority of ‘ordinary’ riders out there.

With the majority of us having to achieve a sensible work/cycling balance, getting fit for racing and putting the hours in can be tough.

4th Cat. and Proud

With me being a 4th cat racer, we’ll be following (vaguely) my progress and all that happens in between to give some sort of insight into the life of a ‘regular’ racer’. After blowing up at a local crit 2 weeks ago it was time to travel down to Spalding to have a go at their town centre crit, which was run in conjunction with their annual flower festival. This gave me 2 weeks to train and get my strength back after a disjointed winter of training and social engagements.

Preparation (2 weeks to race day)

Sadly it was time to give up wine during the run up to the race, (apparently) there is no point in training hard only to go and negate the benefit on these warm summer evenings with a nice glass of red. With an OK  base fitness, I planned to ride everyday and taper off slightly the couple of days before the race. The race was a 3/4 cat race and only 30 minutes long plus 5 laps. This meant it was basically a sprint from the start!

With it not going dark until at least 20:30 here, there is plenty of time after work to get a comfortable 2-2.5 hours riding in. I was lucky with the weather and the first week went well, riding each night on varying routes and with different people to prevent me from getting bored and tired of it all. By the weekend when I was planning to put some longer rides in I was starting to feel the effects, empty legs from the beginning and a slight lack of enthusiasm – luckily nothing that a bottle of High5 extreme couldn’t conquer. The continuing good weather meant that I managed to get out, but some encouragement would be needed for the next week of riding.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège

The motivation from some excellent recent classics racing, a new pair of shoes and plenty of pretty girls out on MTB’s, did their best to keep me focussed. With the crit being so short and on a short course, now it was time to start riding hard and try to get a feeling for the constant accelerate – brake – accelerate nature of the race. This could mean only one thing……….INTERVALS!!!

Love them or hate them, intervals make an unbelievable difference in your performance. You really should give them a go and see the benefits.

1 week to go:

On Monday I went out and tried some 30 second intervals with 20 off in between. As I’m sure some of you will be thinking, these are far too short and yes they you would be correct in thinking that, as they are. With just 30 seconds I was constantly clock watching and never really got into a rhythm and a quick rethink was needed, though they did up my average speed nicely!

On Tuesday I took a nice ride up to the top of Kirkstone pass, which is local climb and is 454m and 1 in 4 at its steepest. We took the nice (easy) route up through Troutbeck and over, coming back down the ‘struggle’ with a howling headwind. The last 10 miles were done solo and again I tried some on/off riding on the rises and had a real good 53/16 ‘attack’ on a climb trying to drop a local rider before finishing. He was of course dropped and I then had to do that awful… ‘just bust a gut to get past you and must continue at this pace so you don’t catch me up and pass me in an embarrassing heavy breathing frenzy’…type thing! Pride can be a great motivator!

Thursday night was my final bout of intervals and this time I used the turbo to really go all out, especially as the weather wasn’t great! Instead of the 30 seconds, I did 5 minutes of a big gear with medium resistance and spinning at around 85-95rpm with 3 off. After 5 lots of these I was done, feeling stronger and so glad to have the Friday off and just an easy spin on Saturday to finish of the preparation.

Race day

The day was cold and very windy which surprisingly didn’t seem to put many people off racing. This meant that there was a full field of 40 riders all trying to ride the same line through the first hairpin corner, where predictably a touch of mayhem prevailed. Luckily no crashes occurred and only one or two mechanicals made for a good days racing.

As always a good breakfast of porridge and orange juice gave me the slow release carbs I needed and in the run up to the race I sipped on High5 energy source and just before the race had a caffeine gel which was raspberry flavour – very nice indeed!

I expected the race to be hard and from the off and it lived up to my expectations. Each corner was followed by a sprint back up to full speed and I don’t think I used the top half of my cassette at any point in the race. The 30 minutes flew by and then came the bell for the final lap. Somehow I’d managed to stick with the leading pack and into the last corner (which was very tight) I wanted to be 4 or 5th out, but just didn’t have enough left to ride around the pack and slot back in. Starting the sprint in about 1/2 way down the pack, I gave my all and made for 12/14th (results yet to be released). Position here is slightly unimportant, as finishing in the main pack after slogging it out was the main achievement.

To top it off while returning my race numbers and kicking my bike around I gained a chainring imprint on my calf which refused to wash off in the shower. Classic 4th cat!

I’ll be keeping regular blogs of my exploits over the season and you can revel in my ‘normality’. On a serious note though, this type of racing is the mainstay of the cycling industry worldwide and without the support of an army of volunteers, organisers and willing participants, they wouldn’t exist. We can’t all be professionals, but we can enjoy the thrill of a race, even if it is from the middle of the bunch!

PBK rider Tom Collier took first place in a tough crit at Synergy Park, hosted by the Ipswich Cycling club. He tells his story of the race and for us Brits, a look into a humid world that we can only dream of!

Riding the 30k’s out to the crit on Sunday it was humid as hell, Queensland does humidity well! So much so that in the dawn gloom the water beaded on my lenses and helmet and soaked through me. The short days here and silly temperatures mean races start early, this one was 7am. Seriously stops you going out for beers racing and riding out here! Training at 5am most days and bed around 9pm.The Synergy Park crit has yielded me a couple of top tens before in 2009 so I was feeling confident today. I have been getting in a lot of miles recently, really trying to focus on strength work which is one of my weaknesses, so I was keen to test myself.  A relatively small field greeted me at sign on, I stuck in my 10 bucks pinned my number on and got ready. A grade and B grade were being run together, equivalent to an E123 in the UK, with A grade being E1.

The course takes about 3 minutes a lap, roughly rectangular with a fast finish straight and a hill/drag over the back. Riding on my own, I just watched the moves for the first 15mins staying in the top ten, I made one break but no one was interested so I went back to the bunch. The whistle went indicating the half distance prime, I was well placed in 4th wheel and decided to go for the cash. Jumping from 3rd wheel hard and hitting the 53×11 I surprised myself overtaking a lone break on the line to take the prize.  Keeping the pressure on two other A grade riders came across and we soon worked well to create a solid race winning break.

We had a great gap and with 2 to go the banter started. The bell came and we watched each other, or rather the Aussies watched and sledged me! I sprinted harder than I can remember to overhaul both my Aussie adversaries and take my first win of the year by a wheel. Well pleased I collected the envelopes and rode back to Brisbane with some other lads for a coffee. The stats read an average speed of 42kph for the hour and a max of 63kph! So my sprinting has really come on and confidence grown. The next race is the Tour de Tweed, a 3 dayer at the end of the month that will be a tough one.

We’ll keep you posted on all Probikekit Team action and don’t forget to let us have your race reports and photo’s so we can let everyone share in the effort!

Team Probikekit.com rider – Jamie Howard gives us his race report from a windy (surprise surprise) Ilton Race on Saturday 27^th March.

As my first race back after quite a long lay-off from a knee injury – I approached Ilton feeling pretty nervous about how I would perform. It’s a big unknown when you’re trying to come back to fitness so I decided to expect nothing and see what happened.

James Smith leading the way!

I was racing alongside fellow PBK team-mate James Smith. It was a big surprise to arrive and find out we had a team mechanic for the race! James had organised a chap called Mark Shoe from “the creaky crank” to look after our Cyfac bikes – we’ll post some more info about his company soon; but if you’re in the need for bike tuning services in the Somerton area – give him a call.

The days weather was pretty good overall – mixed sunshine and cloud and as always…….. windy as hell! Plenty riders were complaining about the early season cold before the race, but it’s all soon forgotten as the race gets under way.

With only 20 or so riders signed on, it looked to be an interesting race – riders keeping a close eye for any moves. On the second lap James Smith and Ben Luckwell rode up the road and managed to stay a good 45 seconds up on the bunch right till the end of the race. I heard James shout encouragement to me to “GO!!!” and as I stomped on it on the first corner of the second lap, Ben and James came through and the break formed – right into the wind. I didn’t have the confidence in my ability at my current level of fitness and decided not to attempt to hold on to it. Possible mistake? Well maybe, they didn’t come back but my excuse was to try and control any attempts to chase.

As it happened, a few other riders did get away but no-one caught Ben and James and they finished the race, Luckwell taking the win closely followed by our PBK rider James Smith.

I finished in the bunch with six up the road, coming fifth and netting me 11th place. I was pretty pleased with that overall and now feel I’ve got something good to build on. Next time I’ll have the confidence to be a bit more aggressive – we’ll see…..!!

Great to see the team racing in all conditions and across a wide range of distances/courses. Also pleased to see Team Manager – James Smith leading by example and racing hard and fast!

Duncan Orme Global PBK Team rider gives us his review of the Lancaster CC Spoco TT at the weekend.

The Lancaster Cycling Club 21.6 miles time trial is a local event for me, so I know the roads well as I spend a lot of time training up and down the Lune Valley along which the course runs. Unfortunately for me as the LCC are my 2^nd claim club and the organiser had decided to put me off as the first rider, so I had nobody to chase. I always prefer to have someone to aim to catch as it gives you some direct feedback on your performance, but it was not to be.

Having ridden the Circuit of Ingleborough the day before my legs weren’t as fresh as I would have liked plus I was suffering from a reoccurrence of the sciatica I had this time last year, but I did have the benefit of my nice new HED Stinger 9’s and local knowledge of the course. So after a long warm up on the turbo to loosen my legs up it was off to the start. The first 10 miles or so are on the flatish eastern side of the river running through Hornby and on the day this was predominantly a tailwind until Greta Bridge where the course turns and you get more of a cross wind up to Kirkby Lonsdale. I hoped the wind wouldn’t be too bad but by the time I got to Greta Bridge my legs were feeling the effects of the previous days race and every little rise in the road was taking its toll.

By the halfway point and the crossing of the Lune at Kirkby I was praying that the headwind on the return leg wouldn’t be too bad, this side of the river is much hillier with 6 climbs in the space of 6 miles a couple of which have pretty poor road surface after the winters frost and rain. The first stretch through to Arkholme wasn’t too bad as the surrounding hills seemed to be giving some shelter, but then the climbs began. At first you can be lulled into thinking these are ok in the big ring, but years of riding up them in training have shown that it’s much better to tackle them in the little ring if you’re riding into the wind and today was no exception. There is very little time to recover as they hit you one after another and with next to no shelter from what was now quite a strong cross/headwind.

The pain in my legs had either gone or they were numb from the cold as I seemed to be getting up the hills quite well considering the previous days efforts and very quickly I was over the worst of them and close to the downhill finish. It was flat out over the last mile leaving just enough to shout out my number as I passed the timekeeper, a quick look at my computer and I’d got under 56mins, so an improvement of over 4 minutes on last season. Once all the times were in all 3 of us were in the top 10, Chris 4^th, me 7^th and JPS 10^th and winning the team prize to boot, so a good morning out for all.

Great work from our local Probikekit.com Team!

Remember to let us have your race reports and training experiences so we can all share in the PBK Global team’s efforts.

James Smith – Probikekit.com’s enigmatic Team manager gives his race report from the weekend and will (like all of us here in the UK) be looking forward to some decent weather for a change!

A day for hard men and lovers of the rain awaited the riders at the Qinetic Circuit.  This closed road circuit at Barnesfield has a number of different routes and today the easier route was chosen without the large hill every lap, although there is a slight rise after a sharp right turn.

This proved to be the staging point for many attacks.  As soon as the race went away two DHC riders attacked and managed to stay away for five laps.  I tried to jump across to them but ended up stuck in no man’s land so sat up.  As soon as the group came together I attacked again and got a decent gap for a couple of laps.  This again failed and now the group was together, this time I attacked as the race turned into the headwind.  I gesticulated to let other riders know that I wanted help and finally Harry Bulstrode (DHC), Steve Dring and Stu Bowers came across this proved to be the winning move.  As we approached the final corner I attacked trying to avoid the inevitable sprint but Bulstrode who was super strong dragged me back before attacking again leaving me gapped and Steve Dring struggling to stay with him.  There was no chance as this guy dropped both of us and finished strongly.  I was bringing Dring back but not quick enough as he went over for second and I finished in Third.  A hard day of racing in atrocious conditions.

Results

Provisional Result
1st Harry Bulstrode (DHCyclesport/Colnago)
2nd Steve Dring (Team Echelon-Spiuk)
3rd James Smith (Probikekit.com)
4th Stuart Bowers (Hargroves Cycles)
5th Andy Bryson (DHCyclesport/Colnago).

Follow the Probikekit.com season as it unfolds on the our blog.

Time has been racing away and while we are all really busy here at the PBK operations bunker, suddenly out of the blue I’m about to be forty; SHOCK HORROR!

Demands of work and the recovery process of my illness (those who know me know all the gory details,  those that don’t , well I don’t want to put you off your lunch!) has meant that my once super fit sculptured and toned body is becoming a little soft around the edges and this has to be turned around now before I roll away.

So in order to keep you all amused, for my own motivation and maybe to get a few of you to follow my lead, I will be keeping a little diary on here sharing my happiness (pain) my goals (pain) and my training runs, via Garmin connect.

Yes, those lovely people at Garmin have given me a (very sweet ) Garmin 500 so I can humiliate myself in 6 different ways, on every ride.

So follow me and my progress and see the remarkable Garmin Edge 500 in action. Share some laughs and maybe I will make the comeback of the decade and beat you in a race near you soon.

This was my pre-work spin last Thursday morning and this is how the Garmin tracked my route. See all the details of the ride at Garmin Connect and you can even download it for your Garmin and try it yourself.
View Fatty’s Pre Work Spin in a larger map

Spend a minute with fastest sprinter in the South West.  In 2009 Rob won the Ilton series plus placed highly in a number of other elite races.  Rob also turned his hand to time trialling and managed that rare victory of a win against the clock.

We spent a minute chatting with Rob..

D.O.B. 20-05-81

Height: 178cm

Weight: 73kg

Star Sign: Taurus

Riding style: Fairly aggressive, not one to sit in all race, I choose my moment carefully, watching the moves and trying to get into the right one. I’ll always stay close to the front of the bunch just to keep an eye on things and look out for team mates. Should the opportunity present itself, I’ll try to go it alone in the hope that a couple more riders bridge across to make a go of it.

Strengths: More recently, circuit races, crits and anything with a sprint finish, although I still love the war of attrition in a multi stage road race.

Favourite riders: So many to choose from….’back in the day’ you can’t go wrong with the formidable riding style and ability of Eddy Merckx, with the modern day honours going to Brit – Bradley Wiggins who had an astonishing Tour de France in 2009, showing that the transition between track and road isn’t impossible by any means.

Role models: My parents. They’ve supported me all the way.

Favourite Bike: It’s got to be my new Cyfac Absolu. I’ve only done a couple of races on it so far this season, but it’s a truly awesome machine. Stiff, light, comfortable and flawless in construction. What more could you ask?

Best ride: Probably the Tour of the Millbury’s stage race in 2007. After burying myself in the individual Time Trial, I managed to hold some form for the road race stage. I got away solo early on and mopped up all of the time bonuses, and cruised home ahead of the bunch to take my first ever yellow jersey.

Worst ride: Ras de Cymru 2007. After my team held on to the yellow jersey for much of the event, it all came down to the final stage. After getting in the winning break and being the leader on the road, it all fell apart on the ascent of the Llangynidr Mountain up to the finish line. A big lesson learned that day!

Favourite Tour Stage: It’s got to the infamous Armstrong-Ulrich and ‘The Look’ L’alpe d’Huez, stage 10, 2001. Tension, heroics, and theatrics (on Lance’s part!)

Life changing moment: My first bike, aged 3.

Favourite music: Anything and everything. I’m a bit of an 80′s throw-back, so anything from that era!

Worst Crash: Tour of Dorset 2006. Sitting in the top 5 overall, got in a good break away, a quick touch of wheels and before I knew it I was on the deck, skidding along the road. Kit shredded, bike in bits and a lot less skin than what I started with! That was effectively the end of my race. I returned for the remaining 2 days on a borrowed bike to help my team mate up to 2nd overall.

Thanks to Rob for his time. More from Team Probikekit.com next time.

Team Probikekit.com rider Tom Collier gives us his race report of the Merthyr CC 10 Mile TT on Saturday 6^th March.

With the Severn Bridge road race full I was keen to get my first race of the season underway. Note to self: get entries in earlier!  The Merthyr CC were promoting a ‘Ten’ on the Saturday before and this local TT was ideal to get me into racing following our awesome team camp in Mallorca.
The start sheet came through and I was scratch man, but with former Multi National Champion and ex Commonwealth Games rider Ceri Pritchard amongst the field it was always going to be a tough race, even more so having fought a snotty cold all week! With a chilly day on the A465 with an east wind blowing down the Neath Valley it was never going to be a quick day and with the TT bike looking ready for action with some lovely deep rims (thanks to Simon Richardson, a Paralympic Champion’s hoops) it was time for decent warm up.  Well it was hard to get warm, but I tried and stuck another top inside my PBK Skinsuit to help!
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and I’m off, the heart starts pounding, wind rushes past the aero lid and onto the main road settling into a rhythm. Not sure about you, but that first outing on the TT bike is always a bit uncomfortable and the tail wind leg into the turn was tough. Through the turn I could see my minute man and I really tried to stick it into the head wind and make up for what felt like a sluggish first 5 miles. I started catching riders and turned my ride around in the last 3 miles.
Back in the Clubhouse I’d recorded a 21:43, which in the end it was good enough for 3rd. Ceri Pritchard took 1^st place in 21:19 and Dave Webster 2^nd in 21:22. I felt bogged down in the gears today, that zip not there in the legs yet, but I gave it everything. Overall a decent result for my first race of the year, it felt great to pull on the PBK Skinsuit and get on the track in anger; a building block for the season, my speed and top end will come!

A great effort in difficult conditions. More from Team Probikekit.com soon.

Richard Wilkinson provides a race report for the Eddie Soens memorial race that Team Probikekit.com took part in at the weekend.

First race of the season and lot of apprehension about my form and some worry since this race has never been fruitful for me in the past. Pan flat, very fast and funnily enough not my sort of race. I need a few rolls and lumps for me to be happy.

However, the race ended up being a bit of a non starter as the handicap allows the juniors to start 3.30mins ahead of the race. Unfortunately there are about 40 juniors many of which are cracking GB talent team riders and who are fast! The juniors came round to lap the elites just as the 3 min 30 sec handicap allowed the elites to start. Now the juniors were joined to the elite group and it meant that they had a lap and that was that! However, we did have some PBK representation in the junior field in the form of PBK junior rider Mike Gregg. He was one of those who gained a lap and got a superb finish of 12^th.

I was a bit confused as to why the elites didn’t try and attack the juniors to get a group away that did not have any juniors in???  I don’t know if they did since I was ambling along waiting to get caught in the group in front. However, all the groups then joined together quickly and I started to make some attacks and follow moves. There were several riders looking pretty fit and strong no more so than Ben Swift of Sky, who showed some fast legs to close gaps down to several hopeful moves.

All of this was to no avail however as the large teams continued to neutralize each other and not let any breaks go far up the road. I tried my hand and got in a number of promising moves as well as a few lone moves. In the end though there was really no escape and the remainder of the race was played out in a mass sprint for the line. Knowing the varying abilities in the group I decided to give the sprint a wide berth and stayed on the outside of the final corner finishing in the bunch, which was sensible since a rider went down in the final hundred yards; nice start to the season for him!

Thanks to Richard for the rider’s eye view of the race.