Mattie Dodd journal #11: racing in the rain

Second-year under-23 Mattie Dodd rides for the UCI Continental Tirol-KTM development team, and is supported by the Rayner Foundation. In his latest post, Mattie recounts a a month-long journey across five countries for the early season racing block.

After a month of living out of a suitcase, I’m now back home from the first block of racing for the year. It’s always nice to get back and be able to fully unpack, as opposed to rummaging around in a seemingly randomly organised suitcase shoved in the corner of the room whenever I need something. I do have a packing system, I promise, it’s just hard to explain…

This month has seen me travel to five countries, stay in six hotels, and pin a number on nine times

This month has seen me travel to five countries, stay in six hotels, and pin a number on nine times. It all started with a team media weekend in a hotel that sponsors us outside Innsbruck. That involved a lot of time spent looking serious and grown up in front of a camera, but then acting like a child at Christmas away from it when I was given the year’s truckload of new kit.

The first race of the year for me was Umag Trophy (1.2). The chaos of this race was something really quite spectacular. Our DS warned us before the race to take it easy on the corners, as the tarmac in that part of Croatia wasn’t the grippiest when wet. The extent to which that was true was something that needed to be experienced to be believed. There was a type of beige tarmac that littered the area. When it got wet, you couldn’t get out the saddle, nor brake with anything other than a very gentle squeeze without wheels slipping. The rain, combined with this bizarre tarmac and a race that is known for being a bit dangerous with early-season nerves still present, resulted in at least half the field having ripped kit by the end. That included me.

I went down in a crash where half the bunch ended up sliding along the dreaded beige stuff when somebody high up pulled the brakes a little too hard on a downhill and the expected consequences occurred. Another crash also took me down with just over three kilometres left. This time after I pulled off, having positioned our sprinter, when the fight for position in front resulted in a touch of wheels and, well, I don’t really need to say much more.

Pretty quickly the whole bunch was dialled into the fact that any sand-coloured asphalt was not to be messed with

I then had a week’s break before starting the first stage race of the year, the Istrian Spring Trophy. I managed to get a bit ill in the day or so after Umag, so spent the week trying to make sure I was in a position to race. I managed it. Just about. I felt my legs were a little bit off during the race, maybe not totally surprising, but it was nevertheless great to be back racing on some good parcours. Each of the three road stages brought with it anywhere from a generous sprinkling to a biblical downpour of rain. This created a few speedway-esque moments on our new favourite road surface, though pretty quickly the whole bunch was dialled into the fact that any sand-coloured asphalt was not to be messed with.

Having finished my time in Croatia for the year and vowed never to return unless the forecast was nothing but unadulterated sunshine, I headed to the seaside town of Isola. I stayed there for the week, before taking on the first of a Slovenian tryptique of races. That being GP Slovenian Istria, starting and finishing in Isola itself. Having made the front bunch of around thirty at the top of the final proper descent, I was put to work in an attempt to keep said bunch still at thirty for a teammate, who we backed in that kind of sprint. Hindsight suggests that was the wrong decision, as the group later swelled anyway, but it was worth a try and he ended up taking second in the bunch sprint behind a break of three, so our trust was clearly well-placed.

The next race then took us to “Slovenian Tuscany”, as it’s nicknamed, for GP Brda-Collio. A new race on the UCI calendar, it crossed the border with Italy twice every lap. Luckily, they clearly weren’t checking passports that day, as that could have caused me a slight issue in a post-Brexit world. The climb on the course was never quite hard enough to cause any lasting damage, and the day ended in a bunch sprint, albeit marred by a crash high up the bunch in the final three kilometres.

The final race of the trio was the GP Goriska and Vipava Valley. Believe it or not, the name was more of a mouthful a few years ago. The first two-thirds of the race saw a very cagey bunch, with a good handful of pretty stupid crashes happening. After a brief foray down a grassy bank to avoid a crash in front of me (video below), the drag race back into Nova Gorica kicked off. The final thirty kilometres saw four and half laps of a superbly-designed city centre course. Each lap featured a short 1.5-2 min climb that finished only 1.5km before the finish, into which there was a hair-raising dive down a technical descent into town.

I found myself solo with a gap to the bunch just under twenty kilometres to go, but that proved a bit too early to go on that circuit. In the end, there were 40 riders into the bottom of the final climb, up which, it was a case of shutting your eyes and getting to the top as fast as possible. My previous attempts caught up with me a bit that final time, having felt pretty good earlier on. I pulled my best Matej Mohoric impression on the final descent, but was in the end caught on the final straight by the second grouping of riders on the road with nothing left to give.

Rain, the Queen and fish and chips – Britain’s contribution to the world in the eyes of Austrians

Having pulled the graveyard shift back to Innsbruck that evening, it meant I had the day to spend in the city before travelling to the next stop on the travelling circus that is cycling. That next town where the performing monkeys were on display was that of Leonding, in Upper Austria, for the first round of the Bundesliga, the Austrian National Series. It’s a series of races with a quality that rivals that of many 1.2s, with over sixty Conti riders on the start at this one. The forecast looked menacing, with “feels like” of 3 degrees and heavy rain forecast. It prompted many a rider to ask me if it felt just like home. Rain, the Queen and fish and chips – Britain’s contribution to the world in the eyes of Austrians.

The rain didn’t end up materialising until very late on, giving way to what was actually quite a nice day at times. Having made the front split going into the small laps, I frankly just ran out of legs during them, leaving me pretty disappointed personally with only a top 20. A great start for the team though, with a third and the lead in the team classification, the prize for which was a massive loaf of bread. That’s the carbohydrate supply sorted for the next week.

After a busy month away, I’m now back home for another month. It’s nowhere near as busy as the last thirty days, but I’ve got the odd Nat B lined up before CiCLE Classic at the end of it, before heading back to Europe until pretty much the end of the year, bar Nationals. The season is well and truly underway.