LondonSkaters Speed Team - Speed Skating & Rollerblading Club in London

roger · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 531

Merten said about last year's event:

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5914

Normally would be tempted but it's a little early in the season for me to to racing and by then I'll be focussing on steady now speed on the run up to Le Mans so I'll be doing a few more relaxed races and events.

merten · Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 9:58 pm Subject:

It's on Sunday 15th May this year, fee 35 Euros until 31st March.

roger · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 531

Kay and myself are booked for this. I just looked at last year's results and it looks like a fast course - and the M50 winners much too fast for me! (Anything near 1:20 would be good for me, but the winners came home in 1:15 )

There is also a half marathon on the Saturday evening - which I reluctantly decided would be too much - but there is the opportunity for lots of racing if you fancy it.

roger · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 531

Neither Kay nor myself got anywhere close to the podium at these Euro championships, but it was a good race, and we both enjoyed it.

The race itself was 4 laps around a 10km loop on country roads, and would have been very fast if it was dry. The loop was more or less a square, but 2 of the turns were via off-ramps, so there were only 2 pretty easy turns on the course. The course was not entirely flat, but the hills were very gentle.

We chose not to use our Storm Surges as it was dry at the start, but it was a little damp on the course, and during the race we had a few showers, so this was perhaps the wrong call.

This was the first race of the year for both of us, so we did not expect too much. For me the lack of race experience meant I was in the wrong place when the first split in the M50 paceline happened, and I got stranded with a pretty slow group of skaters. When the M60 front pack came through later I jumped on the back of them, and stayed with them until the last lap. At that point we overtook another group of skaters and I stayed with them rather than interfere with the M60 race - though looking at the results its clear that a bunch of M50 racers did finish with the M60 pack. I was quite pleased anyway when at the end of the final lap our little paceline of 7 split and I managed to break away with one other guy, and although he was able to outsprint me on the final straight it was good to finish strong.

Kay stayed with a small group of the W50 women for a couple of laps, but then got dropped when there was some confusion with the group being lapped by several faster pacelines. Again, with a bit more race practice she would probably not have let this happen, and might have been able to contest the fourth place at the end.

All in all it was a friendly well-organised event on a very nice course, and we would both do it again - and hope for better weather!

Rick · Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Posts: 5914

Sounds like the place was appropriately named.

ed! · Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 9:12 am Subject:

Looks like my reply to this got lost somewhere!

In any case, great report, and sorry to hear that the results weren't as favourable.

I still can't get over how many different challenging sporting pies you two have your fingers in! I'm always impressed!

Alan · Joined: 19 Sep 2005 Posts: 642 Location: Hackney, London