KW - Different Milkchurn

 You know your sprinting form is not good if you celebrate being third at the coffee stop sprint behind The Pope and GC Denis. 

Of course that result was probably due to the amount of work I had been doing at the front in the first 60% of the ride (It turns out some riders are pretty sensitive about the coffee stop not being exactly half way into the route…). Yes, most of my work I did at the front was when we were stopped, going downhill, or about to go downhill. I, maybe, didn’t work as much as GC Denis had done until then, but certainly way more than the work The Pope had done in the whole day.

I was quite content anyway.

This was a weird ride, you see. 

Everything felt backwards. The route was in the wrong direction. The Pope was riding easy (he said he has a half-marathon tomorrow… the extremes some go sit at the back of the group all day…). JFW was mostly in silence all day and didn’t take any sprint in the first 30k. DD was killing it doing five minute intervals each time she hit the front of the group. Dai sprinting, winning and celebrating, bicycle over his head, a townsign I didn’t even know was there…

It felt I was the only one being the true version of himself.

I even had to lead the group into Cobham when all of them slowed down because none of them wanted to sit in the front so close to the final sprint.

Despite everything everyone behaved like a proper team member the moment we started the approach to the Esher sprint. 

Neutralised to the traffic lights. I sat at the back of the group. 

DD pushed the pace in the first ramp, which meant a spicy approach from the beginning. 

Then JFW took his turn. Following his traditional pattern, hard, but not for long. 

Things got serious when GC Denis moved to the front. We were starting the final ramp and the risk of him pushing it all the way to the line was real.

Then The Pope moved to the front. That almost felt like an attack. But he looked back a couple of times. No doubt to make sure he was pacing us correctly.

Dai took it from there. A strong acceleration. I felt like Philipsen behind van del Poel. He almost dropped me. I was already drafting a complaint letter to the KW committee for bad team mate behaviour when he chivalrously moved to the left and put me in the front.

Into a meaningful head wind!!!!

Never mind. I took (another) one for the team, dug deep, and I crossed the line first. 

We all celebrated together at Esher traffic lights. Everyone exultant for my magnificent win. Such a big difference to other teams that always end up talking about disqualifying other members of the team for the most spurious reasons.

The Pope spoke words of wisdom: "Normality has been restored"

Amen.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/17888737855/ 

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González