Siobhan Horgan (red bar tape) rides in the rain-sodden Omloop Het Van Hageland in Belgium last month.
In her first dispatch for stickybottle, pro rider and national road race champion Siobhan Horgan outlines the challenges she faces in the months ahead as she hunts for the UCI points needed to get to London 2012.
This is my third year with the French GSD Gestion team and I really love it. Previously I’ve ridden with the Italian team Fenixs and the Belgian Lotto Ladies team.
As I write this, I’ve just returned home to Cork but I’m already preparing to leave again.
I spent most of February in France with the team. We had our team training camp in Ardeche from February 10th to 18th and we then returned to the team house just outside Paris to prepare for the early season races in Belgium.
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The team training camp was really enjoyable, although the first few days were during the really cold spell that hit Europe in early February. The maximum daytime temperature was at freezing point and I have to admit that I really struggled with the cold!
My Swiss teammate Patricia Schwager, who had just returned from three months training Down Under, had the right idea and trained indoors on the turbo during the cold snap… although how she did three hours on it is beyond me….
For those of us who did brave the cold, our training consisted of daily rides lasting between two and five hours, with some exercises thrown in to mix it up.
Initially I was terrified of hitting black ice on the road, but my European teammates were riding down descents and around corners as if it was 25 degrees. As it turns out I had nothing to fear…. It seems that there is a different type of cold there – a dry cold, not like we have in Ireland, so icy roads weren’t really a problem.
Away from the training, there were lots of team/staff meetings, a photo shoot and a lot of eating. And most interestingly we did a BG (body geometry) fit with Specialized. All of our equipment from our shoes to our helmets are Specialized. So the company’s BG fit team was invited to our training camp to perform a fit on each rider, which basically involved optimising our positions on the bikes.
After we returned to the team house, we began a recovery week before the first race of the season; Het Volk.
My plan was to ride three races in two weeks just to get some race form. However, fate stepped in and I got sick which meant I couldn’t ride Het Volk after all.
Obviously I was disappointed. But given that these early season openers were not big goals for me, I quickly moved on. I commenced my season a few days later; on February 29th with Le Samyn, which is another 1.2 ranked race in Belgium.
As you would expect for Belgium, this consisted of wind, cobbles, rain and lots of crashes. I was lucky to avoid most of the crashes and finished a respectable 32nd while my teammate and team leader Christine Majerus finished a fine 8th.
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The next race was another 1.2 in Belgium called Omloop Het Van Hegeland on March 4th and was more of the same. Unfortunately this time I wasn’t as lucky and came down early on….
But thankfully I didn’t do any damage to myself and managed to finish 82nd; not a great result, but at least I had finished the race in one piece.
I came home to see my husband John on March 5th and decided to race Rás Luimni last Sunday. It was really well run and very enjoyable. I managed to take 8th spot in the A1/A2 race, so I was thrilled with myself.
I now know that my form is good and the work I put in over the winter has paid off. So where to from here?
I return to France in the next few days for two weeks, during which time I’ll ride a 1.2 ranked race in Cholet in France and then a World Cup race in Italy.
Although I don’t expect to be in top form until mid April, I’d like to perform well in these races because I’m more suited to their style than the two I’ve already done in Belgium.
Ultimately, my goal for the season in to qualify for the Olympic RR in London. However, this will be tough.
It involves me getting ranked in the top 100 riders in the world. I can do this by gaining UCI points, which are hard won.
What I need to do is finish top eight or top twelve in UCI 1.2 or 1.1 ranked races. A win in any UCI race would most likely see me in the top 100. However, if I was able to get some top five places I would need a number of them to get the points tally that would move me into the top 100.
For example, a win in a 1.2 race is worth 40 points, but eight place is only worth three points. So I would need thirteen top eight placings; not an easy ask. But it’s something I can strive for all the same.
I’m really looking forward to the season ahead, and I’ll keep you posted on my progress!!
Cheers
Siobhan
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