Blog - James McCallum reports on his prologue performance
Crystal palace was the venue of the first stage of this year Tob.
It's a bizarre world riding pro bike races of this scale, especially prologues. No matter how many times you ride the course and check out every corner and bump, you still have bad old luck to blindside you when you least expect it.
For me it seemed to be well suited to my riding style coming from a track background - 2.2 km is well within my favour.
The prep started around 50 mins out from my start time of 15.58.
A quick jump on to my time trial bike to get used to the position again and then the start of the physical and mainly mental warm up.
The bike felt good and the legs were going around pretty nice as I click my way thru the gears and got a nice sweat on. Meanwhile I was focusing on my ride, the lines and the breathing.
15.58 arrived and I got a real good shout out from the announcer along with some nice applause which I found hard not to acknowledge.
Off the start ramp and the power was down through the bike and all the way to the tarmac below. This is when luck decided to change. My wheel pulled to the left and was rubbing against my frame. My first reaction was to try and kick the wheel and try to straighten it, however having tried this for what seemed to be an eternity I jumped off my bike in 2 minds....do I change bike?....do I just straighten the wheel?
The second was the easiest one and I took it.
So there I was standing on the route of the first day of the ToB seeing time pass by with every panicked breath and heartbeat. All that was left to do was try and limit my losses. I crossed the line around 50 seconds down on the winner Mark Cavendish.
So all in all not a great start to my tob, however if it doesn't kill ya it can only make you stronger and tomorrow is another day.
Don't you just love cliches?
Jimmy mac
James McCallum
Plowman Craven Evans Cycles Team