Confessions of a 49-year-old A3 rider in the Irish peloton. Dave Smith brings us the unvarnished truth in this fantastic dispatch from the trenches (Photo courtesy Deenside CC)
We’re always impressed by the efforts made by the ‘elder’ riders in the domestic peloton because to race at any level in Ireland nowadays requires effort – and lots of sacrifice.
Last week we brought you a lovely one of 61-year-old Tom Daly who won the A4 race in Newcastle West in a bunch gallop.
And this week, Dave Smith from Moy, Co Tyrone, has penned an interesting, insightful and humorous piece on what it was like for him – at 49 years old - clinging to the best A1 riders in last Saturday’s Tommy Givan.
He calls the article ‘Chasing the skinny kids’, which is exactly what he did all day.
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Chasing the skinny kids
By Dave Smith
You see them at races, the grey-haired A3 riders; more fat on a butchers knife, born in the 60s, they’ve won stages of the Rás, lived in damp Belgian hovels and used to be in a team with yer man who won such and such a classic.
Some of them have anyway. Some of them are like me though; not a scrap of a palmares and our only experience of bonifications has been from listening to Sean on Eurosport. But we have to turn the pedals all the same.
And we have a few kilo we’re hanging onto, just in case we get into A2 and need to find some more speed. And this is what it’s like for us.
You can follow Dave, former coach at Team GB, at VelocityandVitality.com and on Twitter at @ffflow
It’s 7.45am and I’m forcing down the last of the rice and chorizo-infused omellete the morning of the Tommy Givan.
It’s a non-handicapped A*-A1-A2-A3 race. Why it’s not handicapped, I know not.
Let’s just say I’m not expecting points today. Last year it was my first A3 race and some cub from An Post Chainreaction was beside me on the start-line.
I was 48 years old and not entirely sure what I was doing there.
But I got through it, tailed off the first group as they crested the last climb. Happy with that, plenty of others had been dropped.
This year, by a miracle of the earth orbiting the sun the necessary amount of times, I’m 49 and back for more.
Now I’m armed with a couple of points and a decent winter behind me, so my new expectation is to hang on like I did last year.
The sky-blue light blue denotes the category A3, which Smith is a proud member of. He has very little desire to go any higher.
The first lap is as fast as I expected and I stick at it well enough, enjoying the circuit and the speed.
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An extra bonus is that breakfast has left my stomach by the preferred southern route. Second lap in and I feel happier.
At one point on lap three I can only see white, green and black numbers, making me the virtual leader of the A3s on the road. This is the kind of shit I think about.
Some hairy-legged joker in triathlete socks says the pace is a bit slow so I suggest he goes to the front and gets stuck in.
He drifts back. Club mate Emmett Vallely has taken off up the road.
This is par for the course and means I can now sit on and not do any pulls, which is exactly what I’d be doing if he hadn’t gone up the road. Simple tactics win every time.
Fast forward and with ‘two’ laps to go, the bell rings. Happy days.
My lack of ability to count cheers me up no end and I’m still in the front group, 12 or so up the road and only two more ramps until I can go home.
I break circuits down into sections, and Tommy Givan consists of - hang on out of the turn, belly breathe to recover, comfy on the rollers to Annahilt, hang on out of the next turn, enjoy the descending corners, relax for the finish hills, dig in a bit, belly breathe, dig in a last bit, try to look chilled crossing the line, and repeat six times.
The ramps are the only hard bits and I was coping okay with them for the number of laps I thought I’d done and the number of laps I’d actually done.
Okay, so I get to cheat a bit as while I lack the experience of a top old-bloke-whose-done-it-all.
I’ve coached riders at the highest level and I know what to do to prepare my talentless corpse.
And it almost worked. Up the penultimate ramp my inner thighs cramped up, I shook them out, got back on thanks to drafting a Discovery, then they went again at the foot of the last ramp.
They’re awkward buggers, are your adductors - not much you can do to placate them if you want to keep riding.
But still, I rolled in not far off the first group in a race that had shelled a few. And the tan lines had been enhanced further.
But you know what? It’s hard. Hanging onto an A1 out of a corner, up a drag, closing a gap and so on, is not what these legs were made for.
Fighting to stay close to juniors with more energy than is decent skipping up hills.
So when friends who don’t race ask if I won, did I get a result? Too bloody right I did, just not in a way they’d understand.
Next time I’ll share a few hints and tips, just in case you decide you too would like to have your advancing age shoved in your face each weekend.
And I might see you in Emyvale or Clonmel in the next week so give me a decent tow, I mean say hello.
- Dave Smith has been involved in coaching cyclists in all disciplines for more than 25 years. A former GB national and Olympic road coach, Dave has trained Tour stage winners and Olympic medallists, world champions and numerous national champions. In addition he has applied his quirky and counter intuitive thinking to help dozens of regular cyclists, polo players and F1 drivers. He rides about 250 miles a week on and off-road in all weathers. VelocityandVitality.com, Twitter at @ffflow.
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