|
|
THE RISING SUN: THE FIRST RACE: DO YOUR BEST OR DIE TRYING!
Lee Rodgers
March 24, 2009
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
The winner Masahiro Shinagawa, rode for the European Skil Shimano team
Lee Rogers is a 37-year old English racer living in Japan. This
year he will be racing the Japanese Pro/Am circuit for the
Esperance-Stage team. Throughout the season Lee will be sharing his
adventures as he races against the pros in the land of rising sun.
Hiroshima Race, March 15th 2009
Pre-Japan Challenge Series Warm-up Race
It was 5 laps of a 12.5km course, nothing but hills, not a whiff of a flat section. The race started off ridiculously fast and never let up. The first big hill saw 55 of the 73 riders go off the back, never to be seen again. Like Titus Oates stepping into the blizzard. Second time round 5 guys got away and soon got a minute on us chasers.
I clung on for dear life, wanting nothing more than to get a puncture! You know that feeling? When you know you have absolutely no chance of winning, and the best you can hope for is a limitation in the humiliation stakes. A puncture! Please, let me hear that hsssssssssssssss…
But hang on you do, because – you`re a masochist? Well, maybe, but also because the more you hurt the fitter you get. At least you hope that`s true. Third time up the hill I got dropped and had no choice but to chase, and into a headwind at that. So chase with my nose a millimeter off the stem I did, riding harder than those wimps up ahead of me all tucked up snug in the group chatting away about knitting patterns or what not, and at last, after a 4km suffer-fest I just managed to grab that last wheel, like a non-swimmer clutching at a dinghy in an Antacrtic shipping disaster.
Looked at the computer… 36km up a 5-degree climb. Pain. And nothing but.
Fourth lap, same hill, same gap opened up. Lungs felt like hot water bottles being blown up by steroid-addled bodybuilders. Why oh why didn`t I become a surfer? Chased like a deranged stalker once again, just got back on by the skin of my teeth, then got harangued for hanging on and not pulling through. Wished the tortures of Torquemada upon the chastiser. Silently, of course, for nothing but frothed saliva was emerging from my being by that time.
Finally the bell! What a sacred sound that can be! Not an ounce of power left though, and when the sprint came round I had nothing left in the tank but still pulled in for a half decent 13th place in the end. The guy who came 3rd won the Japan Challenge Series last year, and the winner, Masahiro Shinagawa, rode for 3 years with the European Skil Shimano team, and rode Paris-Roubaix and Ghent-Wevelgem, amongst others. Wow, that`s some pretty exalted company! Pretty humbling too.
So, all in all I would conclude that I took quite a pounding. This is certainly a step up on last year`s racing. I`ll have to work out how exactly to take a drink at this speed too, because I just couldn`t seem to get my hands off the bars to reach for the bottle! Still, early season yet - the top boys were all fresh from the Tour of Taipei and the Singapore crits, so have some form over the rest of us.
I will Ganbarre –roughly translated in English it means Do Your Best Or Die Trying!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|