Sam Horgan – Doubling Up At The National Club Champs

By Sam Horgan?(Twitter @Sam_Horgan) It has been a busy last week, but also a very satisfying end to the first half of the 2012 season, as I managed to win both the elite men?s time trial and road race at the National Club Champs. After sixteen hours of flying time and another eight hours of airport time, I finally touched down in Christchurch from Korea on Tuesday morning. I wasn?t home for long though and after a nice meal out with my flatmates and an amazing sleep in my own bed I was back in a plane and flying north for the Club Champs. For this event I was racing for my local club, Pegasus Cycling and staying with them at the Hastings Top Ten. With a team of sixty seven riders competing, there was obviously a huge amount of work that went in behind the scenes to ensure the four days of cycling ran smoothly for the athletes. Massive thanks must go out to Derrick, Hamish, Robbie and all the team who arranged accommodation, transport feeding and sorted the finer details. My roommates for the week were fellow senior riders Reon Nolan, Richard Lawson and Will Bowman and although we were serious about results we also had a bloody good time and there was some great banter being thrown around in the evenings. First event up was the time trial on Thursday, with the revised schedule meaning the senior men started right in the middle of proceedings at 11am. After some poor planning I ran out of time to ride the course the day previous and had to settle for an easy spin around Hastings instead. It?s pretty daunting riding a time trial course blind although I received plenty of information from fellow club members telling me course was relatively straight and not too technical with one early climb to make things interesting. My warm up was the first time I had raised the heart rate since Korea but it seemed to go well and I reached my target zones without fuss. This was also the first time I had touched my time trial bike since the Oceania Champs so it was a bit of a struggle reacquainting my body with the aero position. The event itself was pretty straight forward. I started really conservatively but gradually picked up pace throughout the duration. Catching several riders in front of me provided added incentive and I eventually finished in a time of 53minutes03, a reasonable time for the challenging course. This was enough to win by almost two minutes from Andy Hagen with Dan Waluszewski a further minute back in third.

After a couple of days recovery, the combined elite and U23 road race was held on Sunday. The 29km course was situated in the Matipiro-Crownthorpe region about half an hour out of Hastings and was tough. While there were no particularly long climbs, the constantly rolling terrain particularly on the second half of the course was tough and taxing especially after six laps and 175km. Conditions on the day were overcast and cold with rain threatening later in the day, although not much wind. Going into the event Pegasus was only a handful of points behind in the overall club competition so a good result was important. My parents and family friends had made the trip over from Palmerston North to watch which provided some added incentive. I had highlighted the fifth lap of six as the likely decisive lap and all of the Pegasus guys knew that the key would be to conserve energy as much as possible until then. The race was an incredibly tactical affair. As expected, an early break was allowed to escape on the first lap. Seven riders distanced themselves from the main bunch including Dan Warren, Mike Naylor, Daniel Molyneux and Simon Acker (Pegasus) and quickly built up a massive lead as the bunch clicked into go-slow mode. After three laps their lead was approaching six minutes and only a hard attack from Will Bowman on the long hill up through the feed followed by a period of counter attacking prevented it from growing further. There were constantly people trying to force their way off the front of the peloton including the Pegasus boys, Reon, Richard and Will, but the most dangerous move of the day came on the fourth lap as Dan Barry broke away. He joined my Subway Pro Cycling team mate Simon Binney up the road and moved out to a minute advantage. There was no response from the main field, but unfortunately for Dan after looking very strong early, he experienced a pretty epic body shut down a lap later, which saw him be re-absorbed by the bunch and then have to withdraw from the race completely.  

Throughout the race I found myself pretty heavily marked and couldn?t get very far off the front without being chased hard. In fact any time I attacked there would be whistling and yelling throughout the bunch to alert the guys at the front of my intentions. I carried on undeterred however on the fifth lap I finally managed distance myself from the bunch and establish a significant gap. I joined Andy Hagen and Brad Tilby up the road and with a 3min50 deficit to the now three man lead group I had no choice but to stick my head down and drive it. In hindsight I feel a bit guilty as I had previously accused Brad of racing negatively however in the end he proved to be a massive ally to me in chasing the front. Andy initially assisted in the chase but with his team mate Mike in the front group he eventually started to sit on which I knew would make him very dangerous later on. We caught Simon and Josh Page soon after the feed zone and with added firepower from Simon (having a massive ride) we joined the leaders on the final hilly section with ten kilometres left to ride. By this stage of the race, fatigue had well and truly set in and everyone in the front group was looking tired. Attacks continued and entering the final five flat kilometres it was down to five rides, Andy, Brad and I joining Dan and Daniel from the early break. It seemed a sprint finish was inevitable so I really tried to conserve energy but was forced to shut down a couple of dangerous wee digs by Andy and Brad. I jumped early in the sprint and got a gap quickly that I managed to hold the whole way to the line for a very satisfying win. After a huge day in the break, Dan Warren was second while Andy narrowly piped Daniel Molyneux for third. Simon Binney finished solo in sixth to take the U23 title after an impressive ride where he showed some serious horsepower.  

It was a very hard day on a bike and a great end to what has been a very successful first half of the season for me. In the past four months I have already managed to rack up more wins and significant results than any other full season previously. I now plan to have a couple of weeks off the bike, before I start working toward my new goals following winter. I?ve been very appreciative of the time off that my bosses and Skope Industries have allowed me recently so hopefully these few weeks off the bike will also allow me to refocus on my real job as an engineer. It may be a while until my next post but until then thanks for reading. Sam www.samhorgan.com