Clinton Avery Cyclist

Why hello again, I raced yesterday so I thought I would send you all an update on how that went as well as everything else with my preparation for the world champs. Everything has kinda been going to plan…. with a few little miss haps like going out Friday night and blowing off a little steam or the bbq where I ate way to much. lol just little things, but otherwise the training is coming along magically! and it showed in the race yesterday.

The race was only a kermise but it was a good way to test the legs as I don’t think I have anymore big races between now and the world champs. It was 14 laps totaling 112km but since I had 5 hours on my training program with 2 x 20min time trial efforts, I did 1.5 hours in the morning on the erg with the TT efforts. I started the race and was feeling rather good considering I had done the efforts in the morning. We had a group of 10 go away on the 3rd lap which I was part of. With 6 laps to go a small group got across to us which I wasn’t liking too much cause it made the breakaway to big. He he we got to the head/cross wind section of the coarse and I felt it was time to make the break small again. I lapped through, swung over to the gutter and lifted the tempo from 41kmh to 48kmh. 500m later I looked back to see 9 guys left. We rode with the 9 to the finish. With 1 km to go I lite it up again as with only doing TT specific work I wasn’t banking on my sprint. I was caught by 5 guys with 150m to go and 2 of them managed to get over top of me. I finished 3rd.

As far as the training goes now its looking like another hard week which I hope is going to make me stronger again…. as after yesterday I’m feeling like I am the strongest I have been this year. If things keep going the way they are, I think I should have a shot at the TT of my life in September. I Hope all goes well.

I’ll keep you all posted on my progress Clinton

Well let me just start this off with an apology….. I haven’t sent out any race update for a while and i think that its about time. I have no excuse to why i never… just couldn’t really be bothered writing emails. So sorry and here you are.

Well a couple of weeks ago i raced quite a big interclub… Long story short I spent all day in the breakaway to get caught by the peloton with 18km to go. I went with the winning move with 10km to go to puncture only seconds after the move went. Being car number 15 in the convoy, it took me a while to get a spare wheel. I got back on the peloton with 1 km to go so only managed to finish mid bunch. that was that…. now the race yesterday.

175km with a tough climb and a lot of wind, it was going to make the day very hard. I was feeling good, had just done the most solid weeks training I have ever done and was feeling on fire. The start of the race was very dodgy with the cross winds and everyone wanting to be at the front in case the race split. Well it didn’t split and there were crashes left right and center. Fortunately I managed to avoid all the crashes as well as fellow kiwi Logan Hutchings who was also racing. One crash however I happened to be behind. As I grabbed a hand full of brakes to avoid it my rear brake cable slipped and the screw holding it probably wasn’t tight enough. I continued racing until the car was able to service me I spent a good 5 minutes holding on to the car as they pulled my cable back through so I had a rear break again. Just as I got back to the peloton it was starting to split up a bit so I hammered through to get as far forward as I could. I was back with the front of the race. As we got to the climb (Kemmelberg) I was feeling good and ready for damage to be inflicted on the peloton. Sure enough over the top of the cobbled climb there were maybe 25 guys left at the top and I was part of that. On the very slippery decent a guy crashed in front of me and as I braked to try avoid him I again pulled my rear break cable through. I had to ride the rest of the decent in the rain with only front brakes and I lost a lot of time. I was 3 groups back by the bottom and we had to go over the climb again. As the team cars were not aloud over the climb I was unable to have my brake fixed. I was not going back over there in the wet with no rear breaks. So I pulled the pin right then and there. The legs were very good and I was rather disappointed…. but the day wasn’t a complete waste.

I was still able to support Logan….. Logan rode an impressive race to come to the finish solo with 35 seconds over a group of 9 to take the victory! For me I have now started on my build up for the world championships and apart from the luck side of things it is going very very well so we will just have to see what happens.

Talk to you all soon clinton