{"id":8920,"date":"2019-10-18T11:55:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T10:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/?p=8920"},"modified":"2019-10-18T11:55:55","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T10:55:55","slug":"uci-world-championships-harrogate-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/uci-world-championships-harrogate-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"UCI World Championships – Harrogate 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\"Italian<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With the first home cycling World Championships since they were at Goodwood in 1982 (which very much predates my interest in cycling), I was always going to be spending late September in Yorkshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were a series of events held over a week, but I headed up after the time trials had taken place, reaching my base just outside Pocklington near York – a cabin booked via Cottages.com (there are other places beyond Airbnb!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday I headed out to the Wold Top Brewery in the Yorkshire Wolds where The Cycling Podcast was holding an event. There would be a 74km ride, finishing with a beer and a meal back at the brewery. Then in the evening, Lionel, Daniel, Richard and Francois would record an episode of the podcast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was not on producing duties fortunately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was just as well, because the ride had taken its toll\non me. Who knew that Yorkshire was so hilly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the ride had started in good weather, about halfway\nthrough, the rain had caught up with us, and I got a good rinsing. One of the\nlater hills nearly finished me, and then because I was now one of the slower\nriders on the course, I got a second rinsing. By the end, Daniel, who was not\ncycling but had gone for a run, had overtaken me on the steep hill back to the\nbrewery (it\u2019s not at the \u201cTop\u201d for nothing). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brewery had made a special brew for us which was welcome\n\u2013 although sugar in the form of full-fat Coke was also on the menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"The<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I headed into Harrogate on Friday, where I though I might\ncatch the end of the Junior Women’s race. I did just<\/em> catch it, but only\nbut virtue of arriving in Harrogate just as they were closing the road ahead of\nme. So, I parked up and caught it at a nondescript roundabout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The weather was going to continue to be poor for the rest of\nthe week. The U23 time trials had seen some riders crash spectacularly. In\nbetween the Junior women and the later U23 men, I explored the Fan Zone, set up\nin a central Harrogate park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a pop-up cycling event, with brands putting up marquees\nshowing off their kit, and selling souvenirs. But it looked a bit quiet. There\nwas a prevailing view that the Fan Zone had been far too quiet all week. That\nwas probably partly because of the weather and partly because the really big\nraces only arrived at the final weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there were bars with no queues and food outlets not\nselling much food. In the main merchandise tent, where you could buy a flat Yorkshire\ncap with a UCI tag on it, they were already discounting the T-shirts. (Rumour\nhas it that Yorkshire over-stocked on their merchandise for the Grand Depart in\n2014, having to take quite a bath on it. I slightly fear that they went\noverkill this time too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Tom<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the slightly soggy Fan Park, other brands like Zwift,\nRouleur, SRAM and Specialized had taken over various cycling shops and caf\u00e9s\naround Harrogate. These seemed much buzzier. Having watched a fair amount of\nU23 men on TV in the Corner Haus (and got a free musette for my troubles), I\ndashed outside to watch the end of the race in action as the men embarked on a\ncouple of laps to finish. Prior to that, I\u2019d also made an emergency shoe\npurchase, my trainers having becoming soaked and covered in mud in the Fan\nZone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Danish<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"British<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"Select<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was controversy in the race when the first rider over\nthe line was disqualified. Race commissaires decided that following a\nmechanical, he\u2019d drafted far too much to get back into the race and therefore should\nbe stripped of his win. This had happened a long way out, and it was\ncontroversial because it\u2019s relatively normal for riders to get a \u201ctow\u201d from vehicles\nin the race convoy when they\u2019re taken out of the race through no fault of their\nown \u2013 e.g. a crash or a mechanical issue like a flat tyre. The rules are the rules,\nbut of course how they\u2019re interpreted can change. As someone would later say,\nit\u2019s a bit like how the refereeing in a Premier League game is different to\nthat in a World Cup game. Referees are tougher or more forgiving in different\nevents, and players are expected to know that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Properly<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That evening, The Cycling Podcast was doing its biggest\nevent yet in a Harrogate theatre. I went along to that, and said hello to Seb\nPiquet, who sits in the front car at events like the Tour de France and gives\nteams (and commentators) up dates on what\u2019s happening from his perspective. He\u2019d\nbeen doing the same at the World\u2019s and he told me he was exhausted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d have loved to hang around in Harrogate (and was invited\nto), but the official car park I was in closed very soon and I had to quickly\nmarch over to the field near the showground where my rental car was. On reaching\nit, I was told that the rain had meant more than 50 cars had needed towing out\nthat day! The safest thing was to reverse down the field I was in until I\nreached a gravel surface. Then a mile or so of that would get me out to the\nmain roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Union<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Saturday looked to be slightly better weather, and my plan\nwas to try to catch the Women\u2019s Elite race out on the course, before heading\nback into Harrogate to watch them do the circuits. There was a home favourite\nin Lizzie Deignan who\u2019d be going through her home town on Otley early in the\nroute. But in truth, you couldn\u2019t really see beyond the Dutch team who had\nenormous strength in depth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drove out to a point where there were more cyclists on the\nroad than cars, parked up, and cycled the last few kilometres to watch the race\ncome through. Remarkably, the first hill in the whole race absolutely blew the\npeleton apart, and when they came through, the lead group was already a select\none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Small<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then it was back to the car and the drive into Harrogate\nwhere today they\u2019d moved the car parking to firmer ground. I was glad I\u2019d\nbrought my bike because the \u201c20 minute\u201d walk was much closer to 30 minutes from\nthis location. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Italy<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My first spot was near the pit area, where I also had the benefit\nof a big screen. Annemeik van Vleuten had broken away with something like 100km\nto go on her own, and the group behind just weren\u2019t working. It looked to be\nhers for the win even now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Annemiek<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the big group came through the pits, it was\nsurprisingly chaotic. A Russian rider went down right in front of me, although\na bloodied elbow wasn\u2019t enough to stop her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Russian<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The following laps saw the race continue to break apart,\nwith Deignan trying moves to get away towards van Vleuten, but they didn\u2019t work\nand she ended up burning calories that meant she slipped away in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Time<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Van Vleuten won memorably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Annemiek<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My initial plan for Sunday and the big men\u2019s Elite road race\nwas the same as Saturday, but overnight things got worse. First of all, the\norganisers and the UCI decided that the course needed changing and shortening.\nA big loop that included a couple of major climbs was now impassable because of\nthe rain and enormous lakes of puddles that had formed. This was a massive\ndisappointment as you just know that hundreds of people including many cycling\nclubs would have planned to ride out to these climbs to watch the race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the race would be slightly shorter, but instead of\n7 laps of the 14km finishing circuit in Harrogate, there would be 9. A shorter\nrace might be good, but the weather still seemed to be utterly awful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided I just didn\u2019t have the wet weather clothing with\nme that I\u2019d need, so instead of watching it my a wet roadside, I decided to\nmake an early getaway, get down the A1(M) back to London, and watch much of the\nrace there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made it home before the riders had reached Harrogate,\nalthough the miserable weather meant that helicopters couldn\u2019t fly. This didn\u2019t\njust reduce the quality of the TV pictures, but had the knock on effect of\nmeaning that only a plane that is able to fly over <\/em>the clouds was able\nto beam back motorbike pictures. And in a six hour race, that plane has to\nrefuel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So just after I turned on my TV, we lost pictures for the\nthick end of an hour, while the plane flew to Doncaster to take on more fuel. A\nhandful of fixed cameras around the circuit provided some pictures, but it was\nclear that even a foreshortened race was taking its toll. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

British hopes relied on Ben Swift, although in the end Tao\nGeoghegan Hart would finish just ahead of him in a very tough race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They weren\u2019t at the head of the race though. Stefan Kung of\nSwitzerland had broken away with Matteo Trentin and Gianni Moscon of Italy,\nMads Pederson of Denmark and Dutch wunderkid, Mathieu van der Poel. Van der\nPoel seemed the likeliest winner despite his youth, having had some exceptional\nresults this season. But at the start of the final circuit he just fell away.\nAt first it looked like he might have had a mechanical, but he\u2019d just finally\nbeen worn down and run out of fuel. That left the two Italians, the Swiss and\nthe Dane. Gianni Moscon looked cooked too, but he gave everything he could to\nMatteo Trentin, and most fancied him in the sprint. So when Moscon dropped off,\nand the three entered the final kilometre or so, it was just a question of when\nformer European champion Trentin would pull away and win. He opened up his\nsprint at about 200m to go, but he just didn\u2019t have enough on the slow drag to\nthe finish. The 23 year-old Pedersen came around him and was able to cross the\nline with his arms aloft. Nearly a complete outsider he\u2019d won. (I should\nmention that the excellent Inrng had given him a small chance of winning).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a shame not to see the final in person, but I was fairly\ncooked from my week in Harrogate, a few days prior to that with friends, and a\nweek with work in India. Roll on Glasgow 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the first home cycling World Championships since they were at Goodwood in 1982 (which very much predates my interest in cycling), I was always going to be spending late September in Yorkshire. There were a series of events held over a week, but I headed up after the time trials had taken place, reaching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"template-fullwidth.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,20],"tags":[56,61],"amp_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8920"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8973,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8920\/revisions\/8973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}