Lake Menteith APR Handicap Race, 1 Apr 2023

This was my first handicap race so didn’t really know what to expect. I just knew I wanted to hold the scratch group off for as long as possible as the course had a few short climbs in and the scratch group had some really strong climbers. I set off in the group before the scratch group as I’m a cat3, and there were two more groups in front of us. The first group had 10 minutes on us and the second group had 5 minutes, then we would have 2.5 minutes on the scratch group.

Initially the group I set off in was working really well together but I knew we needed to be moving a little faster than we were so I pressed on a little bit out of one of the corners and rode tempo until they caught me back. This got rid of a few of the slower riders and the group was now moving at a good pace. We had now started catching the dribs and drabs of the groups that set off before us. We got to the lumpy part of the course and the group pretty much stopped working together so I pressed on again up and over one of the climbs and got a fairly big gap. I began picking up riders and one managed to stick with me and we began working together. It was only at this point with 8km to go I thought we could maybe hold off the scratch group all the way to the finish.

At this point I wasn’t sure if we’d caught everyone that had set off before, until a motorbike came up alongside and told us at roughly 5km to go that we were head of the race. Shortly after that we were joined by a few of the riders that I had set off with. This helped increase the speed down the hill leading into the finishing hill and as this point I knew the scratch group weren’t going to catch us. I had got a little bit cold on the downhill before the climb to the finish and my legs didn’t really feel like they were working so I positioned myself second wheel up the climb. We then got over the steep bit of the climb and I started my sprint. As soon as I did I thought I’d gone way too soon because it felt as though I was sprinting in slow motion, but luckily nobody managed to come around me and I took the win.

Kim Baptista