I have raced a number of triathlons over the past three years, but have never taken the plunge into bike racing. Mostly as I see biking as the most difficult of the three disciplines, and that I consider myself to be no more than fairly average on the bike. 

On the 2nd April, I took part in the Northwest Classic A4 bike race just outside Dungiven. What began a beautiful day soon ended with utter bewilderment at the sheer exertion and energy I had used, trying, and I emphasise ‘trying’, to race almost 80 other individuals on the small country roads of Gortnahey. 

The aim of myself taking part in this race was to a) sharpen up my bike and b) my coach and training guru Brendan Connor of www.performancesbr.com made me do it :), I jest.. I was a willing, yet turns out very naive participant. 

It being my first race I had taken a lot of advice from my fellow team members, namely Paul Slavin, an athletic beast with serious prowess and in my opinion, great potential in bike racing. ‘Keep your line’ ‘You’ll be dragged along with the group’ ‘Stay on the wheel in front’ ‘Go from the gun’ all keeping my mind occupied as to the task in hand. The warmup was a somewhat relaxed affair as time crept closer to the start. 

On the way to the line the broom wagon designated driver for the race and I’ll add another serious athlete and Ironman Ciaran McKenny said to myself and Stephen Canavan (also an Ironman and powerful cyclist) ‘Make sure you stay in front of me lads’. At this stage I thought to myself, sure that’ll be easy… no bother at all.

My only thought as I lined up with the other competitors was that I needed to stay with the group. And try I did…

We were off. Over what i can only describe as about 6 miles of uphill climbing on the first of our three 12 mile loops. My heart thumped in my chest as I tried to counter every surge that the group made. I was afraid to look at my heart rate and when I did I knew for sure that I was hurting. It didn’t creep much below around 170bpm for those first 6 miles. And this was in the group?? I was confused, the group was supposed to be comfortable, pleasurable, manageable… it was most definitely not. 

Eventually the uphill struggle would stop and be replaced by the downhill run and I would be fine again. My thoughts were convinced of this but as we began the descent I realised that the group had no intention of taking the technical section easily so that ‘I’ could recover. They ploughed on taking corners at speeds that my bike had never encountered. Relentlessly pushing the pace on and separating the weaker individuals from the safety and so called comfort of ‘the group’. 

Needless to say it was following the descent that I became detached. At one point I looked at my bike computer which was registering speeds in excess of 30mph as I desperately tried to ‘get on the wheel’ of two or three bikes which had edged ahead. I failed in the attempt and in the trying had pushed my lactic filled legs, heart, lungs and mind to the edge of it’s capacity…

I soldiered on over the first lap marker, myself and a few other stragglers who had been ‘blown out the back’ in isolation made our way along the 6 mile aforementioned climb, into the wind this time. The previously unfelt wind became the deciding factor in my decision for the rest of the race. As the miles clocked up on the second lap I had already decided to retire. I tiredly made my way back to the start to await the arrival of the first finishers. 

And finish they did, a flurry of cyclists, veins popping out of the side of their heads as the final sprint ensued.

The day was an entirely new experience and one that I won’t likely forget for a long time. I have tried since to describe it to others and in the only way I know how this is my attempt.
It’s like a running race, a 5k race for example, where you line up and see Mo Farah next to you on the starting line. The starting gun explodes and the race begins. This time though, you have to keep pace with Mo… Whatever he does you have to follow. Otherwise the race is over. 

This is bike racing, it’s incredibly difficult, it’s relentlessly hard and it most certainly pushed me to my limits on the bike. I will definitely try it again hopefully with a little more race specific training under my belt.

Well done to all the lads from PSBR who raced hard and finished well on the day… encouraging me to keep at it and have another lash. Brendan Connor, Paul Slavin, Stephen Canavan, Stephen Mulberry, Tommy Kerrigan.