Shiny new Primal rider Peter Haworth introduces himself with his first contribution to the website.

Dec 12, 2011

So, there I was, racing in the best form I’d had all season, getting in the moves that mattered when bang, it was all over in a blink. I found myself lying on the floor with Gary Chambers about to pile into me at full speed, clutching his brakes, staring me straight in the eye. Boom! I jumped to my feet and to the best of my recollection my first words were “Gary what the F**K was that?”.

I’d hit something that to this day is a bit of a Loch Ness monster in that it’s been everything from a traffic cone to a brick. Soon enough though I realised that something wasn’t right, my left shoulder was in absolute agony. My legs thought it better to have a little sit down on the grass and wait for a grown up to come and tell me I was going to be ok. Alas this was not to be, like so many great cyclists last year (Bradley Wiggins, Junior Heffernan), I’d broken my collar bone into three and it was my season over in a second.

So, some two months, a few drinks, more than a few kilos and one titanium caterpillar holding my shoulder together later, I got back on my bike to begin winter training. That first ride was horrible, my legs were asking me what the hell I was playing at, they were perfectly happy sat in the pub with only my arm doing some light lifting. Shit, I’m really unfit, I’m at the back of the rides struggling to ride tempo. In a panic I’m on the phone to my coach “I’m fat, I can’t ride, I’ll never lose the weight in time” he did his best to console me saying that I was going to be ok, but I had a little monkey in my head telling me different.

Two months have since passed, two months that have included their fair share of humiliating rides. One stand out session a few weeks back saw me dropped, left for dead, suffering for an hour and a half to cover what should have taken me thirty five minutes tops having blown my doors off the morning after the Christmas party. It’s all character build they tell me. Try and keep that in your head when you can’t keep your eyes open and you feel like crying…

Now I’m a fair few kilos closer to where I should be, there’s still a couple more to shed but they’re going nice and steadily. I’m hitting the numbers, (it’s all about the numbers (sic)) and I’m really looking forward to what will be some massive but enjoyable challenges next year, with some old friends and some new.

I’ll let you know how it goes…