Jody Cundy preparing for the World Cup

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so thought I’d bring you up to date on a few things.

Since my last post I’ve signed with a new team, actually my 1st cycling team: VC St. Raphael.  I’ve also competed in my first set of races outside of paralympic events. I rode the 1st round of the Llandow crits, in which I was 7th in the 4th Cat race, which wasn’t bad for my 1st race. It taught me a few lessons, like not to sit on the front too much as it fatigues you out more than you think and secondly, don’t get boxed in when the strongest rider decides to make his break with 2 laps to go!

And then just a few weeks ago I rode the first round of the Sprinters Track League at Newport, which didn’t go too bad, although I was quite cautious about getting stuck in as the Paralympic World Cup is coming up soon and I want to be fully fit and ready for it.

Speaking of which, preparations are going very well. I managed to top my personal best in my flying 100m efforts both in training and also fully kitted. In Manchester last week I finally managed to crack 20 seconds for my opening lap with a 19.72, so things are going well.

I’m off up to Manchester again next week for some fine tuning on race gear and then it’ll be a week to go before the World Cup.

We have 3 preparation days in Newport where we shall be training as a squad and fine tuning our team sprint change-over etc. and then we’re all competing at the Newport GP on the Wednesday night. This is going to keep me busy as I’m doing a flying 200, 1km, 3km pursuit and to finish it off a scratch race!

Then we head up to Manchester for a final track session before the World Cup the following day. Another busy day's racing for me: team sprint qualifying, followed by a 1km, hopefully a team sprint final and then a scratch race to finish it all off.

I'm quite looking forward to the world cup as in the 1km they have invited the top 3 riders in my class (LC2), top 4 in the class above me (LC1) and  top 3 in my equivalent CP class (CP4), it should prove to be quite a close race as all 3 of our classes' world records are within a second of each other. We’re also going head to head on the track like a pursuit, so that should make things a little more interesting. I’m off in the 5th and final heat against the LC1 WR holder and world champion Michael Gallagher.

I’m not having much luck at the moment with road bikes, a week and a half ago I broke the frame of my team issue bike after crashing into the back of a car. I was all in one piece but the bike wasn’t, as I broke the rear seat stay. And then when I was training on my remaining road bike I stepped on the pedals and ripped the thread from the crank set, guess the pedal had worked loose, or was never tight in the first place. So currently I’m trying to get on track as much as possible and if not on track I’m on the rollers on my track bike! Not ideal but until my road bikes are back it’ll have to do!

Also managed to get in a short break over the Easter weekend in New York, which was really great, plenty of sightseeing and a whole load of shopping (credit cards on melt down!) I was amazed at the couriers riding through the busy streets of new York on track bikes, no brakes fixed wheel, pure madness, but a lot of respect!