Tell us about your weekend ride

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I rode my first proper road race, Kenya's "Savannah Classic". 125km on a flat/rolling road, stretching from the Tanzanian border up towards Nairobi. 1200m ascent (ish).

Among the field of 55 riders were the best in Kenya. The field was STRONG including David Kinjah (to whom Froome owes his skillz) and his Safari Simbas pro team (green kit) plus the Safari Simbas youth team (red & white kit) and another team from Tanzania all wearing Google jerseys.

**Numbers!
**The lead six riders (including Kinjah) finished in 3:08:00, making their average 39.9kph [25.0mph]. I finished 29th with a time of 3:46:00, making my average 33.2kph [20.6mph], the fastest I have ever ridden for any real distance.

**Start
**Up at 6am after a night of repeated calls to prayer from the bazillion mosques, crappy hotel breakfast, 25 minute warm up, collected into a group and started rolling.

**First 20 km
**Poking clandestinely out the window of a 4x4, the flag was waved and the race began. The peleton cruised at 30kph for maybe 10km. It was easy to sit in and spin but we were packed very tight, shoulder to shoulder, which made me nervous as I tried not to wobble into anyone. At the top of the first hill (which was long and 4-6% like all the hills) the leaders stepped the pace up to 38-40kph and we shed half our riders. The next hill came at 20km and I found myself without a wheel to sit on and unable to force my way into a solid line of riders to my left. I sat in the wind as these machines drove themselves uphill until I was summarily dropped, spat out the back. Probably 30 riders were ahead of me, including only two expats.

**20 - 80 km
**Watching the lead group vanish, I thought "this was always going to happen, no worries, just form a new group". I quickly found a big strong Londoner named Paddy who was complaining about being short of breath, because the race is at altitudes of 1400-1700m and he's fresh from the UK. I offered him my wheel to recover, and then we worked together to catch another three Kenyan riders. These guys were in Kinjah's Safari Simbas youth team, aged like 15-18 years and were tiny, probably like 50-55kg. They were not very welcoming and attacked us repeatedly but couldn't drop us. To persuade them to work with us I shouted "TUNAHITAJI KUFANYA KAZI KWA MOJA"- (We need to work as one). We tried a messy rotating paceline before settling for a solid 2-2-2 formation, cruised like this for probably 60km and caught another teenager from Tanzania on the way. These cheeky young East Africans attacked us hefty Brits on every hill and then worked with us on the flats - it was a strange relationship. I also nearly caused a crash when descending with these riders. My wheel came into heavy contact with the wheel in front and the "zzzzzzzzip" of my tyre on his was a scary sound indeed. Must practise more bunch riding….

The sun was super strong and I'd forgotten to SPF up. Having never done this before, I managed to sort it without even losing the wheel in front which is possibly my most impressive act of the day.

**80 - 126 km (finish)
**The feed stops were hilarious as volunteers were holding out CUPS of water to passing riders. Not one rider today managed to grab a cup without the water exploding uselessly into the air and/or the volunteer's face, so at the 80km mark we stopped fully at a feed stop to take on water & glucose. A shoe issue kept me at the stop for an extra 30 seconds and all four East African youth attacked, leaving only Paddy waiting for me. Us two Brits caught James the 15 year old Kenyan, but we had lost the stronger three. For the remaining 46km, James raced negatively but cleverly, attacking us Brits on the hills and just sitting on our wheels on the flat. He was probably 50kg to my 73kg and Paddy's 90kg (!). Paddy was powerful on the flat and did some heroic 40kph turns on the front. I noticed we were 1.5km from the finish and I tried to do a Cancellara style in-the-saddle solo effort, but simply ended up leading out Paddy & James for their sprint and found myself last in the trio thinking "that didn't go as planned". To be honest I had very little juice left so wasn't too upset with myself. Paddy won the sprint, making him 3rd mzungu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mzungu and me 4th.

There was confusion over the race winner because there was no sign saying "finish 2km ahead" and the front six riders crossed the finishing line in a very tight messy bunch. So, somewhat arbitrarily, Kinjah came 3rd behind two other teammates. That 17 year old Peter Gathere was in the finishing bunch with these 25-45 year old elites is just astounding. If he gets the right support he'll be a rider to watch in the coming years, like a black Froome? Who knows.

**TL:DR
**I raced with a load of Kenyans and expats including some pros. I went fast and loved it. Also it appears I can't sprint. Plastic cups are not effective vectors for supplying water to riders travelling above 20mph.

Video
Taken during the first few kilometres before the pro team (in green kit) turned on the pain. I'm at the very back, on the left. Use the HD button for better viewing.
**CLICK FOR VIDEO --> . ** . <--- CLICK FOR VIDEO

. Apologies for the socks. My shoe got stuck to the pedal and was removed later.