Well it started just a few months back with an idle web browse, something about UK stage racing which, in an effort to broaden my bike riding I had a bit of an idea about pursuing. There's not much of it about up here these days. Barring the big, bad Girvan theres only the Dundee 2 dayer, which I like riding well enough but leave wishing it would go on a for few more days...So the Ras de Cymru pops up here
http://www3.newport.ac.uk/
and I'm agog. 6 stages, 5 days, mountain top finishes, £100 000 prizes, entries not accepted from 1st cat or Elite riders - I'm in! I was able to persuade my club, the excellent and venerable Glasgow Nightingale Cycling Club to pay my entry/accom fees - (thanks everyone!) but I was unable to twist other Scottish arms into entering but as the race format was for teams of 4 I was steered towards the Veloriders forum where 2 locals from the Ogmore Valley Wheelers, Robin Powell and Graham Howell, were soliciting for team-mates. Shane Leadley (Go Sport Spex) was up for it and I was welcomed into the fold - which garnered a little press in itself.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/
The other fascinating and enormously appealing detail of the Ras was the entry of 2 female teams with Jo Rowsall, Emma Trott & Nicole Cooke (Team Halfords) and Emma Pooley & Jessica Allan of Team GB (team made up to 3 with the addition of South African Tim Carter) - good company to be keeping! Cooke (ex of Ogmore Valley Wheelers) and Pooley were riding the Ras as one of the final elements of their Olympics preparation.
So off I went south overnight in a wee hire van. Clear roads and a couple of service station snoozes later and I'm at the University of Wales campus outside Newport which is the race HQ. All very friendly and organised - I check in and find my way to my student cell in a flat of 4 in a block full of cyclists. Refectory is 2 minutes walk, race HQ is 3 and on the way is the library, sports centre, bar, launderette and basically everything we were going to need for the rest of the week. Other riders arriving all the time, all lean, mostly young and aye, all friendly. I unpack and fiddle about with the bike as this afternoon its the prologue:
Listening to: Jarvis Cocker - 'Jarvis ' & himself reminiscing on a Sheffield childhood on Radio 4
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