For Matthew Page

Well I’m not sure what everyone else’s worst nightmare is, but yesterday mine came true.
Coming towards the end of a fantastic 70 mile road ride I was descending the final hill 2 miles from home. Tucked up and catching a few cars up travelling around 40mph… Bang!
The front tyre had blown and within a second all the air had gone. I knew instantly what had happened and I was bricking myself just waiting to hit the deck. This was going to hurt. The wheel was squirming and scraping the tarmac all over the place as I somehow guided the bike round a couple of fast corners with the gradient still falling away from me. Eventually on a straighter part I was able to slowly bring the bike to a halt. I jumped off, let off a long line of expletives and started to wonder how the hell I stayed upright.
Maybe I was lucky, or maybe my skills from mountain biking had something to do with it, being used to having the tyres sliding when riding in the mud or gravel. Had I come off, at the speed I was travelling it would surely have been a trip to hospital and no doubt a lengthy spell off the bike and a massive confidence knock.

Apart from that incident everything has been going rather well. I’ve decided to stop working as a cycle courier in Cardiff and return to the area I was from originally. Whilst I really love the work I do it can no longer be relied upon as a method of training. So now I can implement a proper training plan, get in more mountain bike rides and do a bit of speed work and hill climbs.
We will see soon enough if I have made the right decision because the first race; Wiggle Enduro 6 is just over 3 weeks away!

Here’s some pics of Matt on his Focus Raven Pro

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Athlete Diaries, Matthew Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.