I HAVE been on the road, racing, for so long that none of my clothes smell like me. They smell of whatever washing tabs the team bought this week and whatever hotel/house we’re staying in. When I do go home for brief spats, the house doesn’t smell of me either because I don’t live there.
I’m worried my scent is being erased. I’m worried because it’s maybe a symptom of one of my relatives messing around with time travel. Like when Marty McFly slowly fades out of that photograph because he knocked his parents’ relationship off course and the chances of his birth became less and less. My fading scent might be the first sign of a potentially existence-wiping event. I just hope that whatever blockbuster film I’m trapped in relies on my survival for a sequel.
I bet it’s my brother. Ever since he started getting his name in results sheets I’ve been worried he is trying to oust me from the picture, and he seems like exactly the kind of like-able loser who would stumble across a time machine.
Things didn’t go his way on Thursday, however. He was racing his first British National Time Trial Championships (I was racing my fourth in five years) and talk about a dramatic debut! It was about a six out of 10 for drama but please accept now that I’m going to tell the tale with the gravitas of a nine.
Early evening on the Isle of Man. The sun still shines and the breeze is light. The only warning we had that potential disaster lay before us was too cliched to be given the respect it was due: John was number 13. I was in his following car and I did spend a lot of time thinking about his number. Not for its connotations but because we accidentally picked up the commissaires (officials who check you aren’t breaking any rules) talking about him on the radio. “Number 13 going very well … going to continue tracking number 13 ...”. Number 13 was so fast they wanted to monitor him!
Then with 10km (of 44km) to go, number 13 got something jammed in his chain. Number 13 tried to shove the chain back on while riding but it was in knots by this point. Number 13 got off the bike, thought he had fixed it, rode 30m and then it jammed again.
Throughout all this, the car following number 13 (filled with me, my mum, Team WNT sports director Graeme Herd, Team WNT mechanic Evan Oliphant, and Scottish Cycling coach Mark MacKay) is going nuts with panic. Me and my mum in the impractical rip-your-own-skin-off kind of way, everyone else in the thrown-into-action kind of way. Eventually number 13, having already haemorrhaged serious time, had to accept jumping on to his road bike to complete the course.
Losing the aerodynamic advantage of a time-trial position and wheels, time continued to gush uncontrollably. He finished 14th. Although I, of course, view that slack-faced, orange-topped, baboon called John Archibald with nothing but contempt, I suffered serious sympathetic heartbreak. The Scottish-local-scene-sensation maybe wasn’t going to make it on to the podium but he was going to get a damn sight closer than 14th. Gutted for him.
My race was filled with far less drama. After two days practising the course beforehand I managed to combine a fairly efficient ride with a season power PB for the distance to get myself a bronze medal in the women’s race. Huzzah! Places second to fourth, which went Hannah Barnes (2016 national road race champion), myself (Katie Archibald your favourite storyteller), Hayley Simmonds (2016, and so defending, national time-trial champion) were all within nine seconds of each other over the roughly 32-minute course.
The winner, however, was almost 20 seconds clear: Claire Rose of team Visit Dallas DNA. A stellar ride that has earned Claire, last year’s silver medallist, the enviable delight of 12 months racing time-trials in the national champion’s stripes.
The other stripes on offer this week are being decided as you skim through this paper. The best of British road cyclists are battling against each other (and the wind at the top of the mountain) round the Isle of Man to be crowned national road race champion. Listen carefully, can you hear my whimpering from where you sit? No? Maybe I’ve fallen sideways off my bike and what I’m muttering about refusing to climb anymore is inaudible. Strange.
There are some favourites that I don’t expect you will hear moaning, amongst them 2015 world champion Lizzie Deignan and already mentioned (and on form) Hannah Barnes. My one to look out for for a good result, however, is Hayley Simmonds, a Team WNT team-mate. It depends how the race unfolds but if it’s decided on the climb, the girl’s got legs. I’ve made a habit of jinxing the people I tip for wins, though, so I think the safest thing to do is tip myself and then no-one else gets hurt. In which case I better get to bed, I’ve got a big race to win.
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