The weekend

The weekend has been at interesting one, and a relatively good one too.

Saturday began with me not having to work for once (worked 3 saturdays in the past month), so it began very lazily with umpteen teacakes eaten for breakfast with a huge mug of coffee before heading over to the parent's place where more coffee and the newspapers waited for me to devour.

The afternoon was spent with Mom and Bro shipping (window shopping in my case, as I'm so skint) and having a hoot with them both. Popped into the shop I work in, and we all had a go on the tombola - myself and mom not winning everything, bro winning 3 times. he was very nice and gave me one of the prizes which I'm happy about as it's a lovely fragrance, and one which I'd never normally think about. But there you go!

The evening was spent over at the Manchester Velodrome watching Revolution 26 - a night of cycling including elite and future stars riders all competing in their own sectors for placings in the series.
Unlike in November's event where the future stars had several crashes, it was the turn of the elite riders with 2 crashes in the same race. Both riders got up and carried on racing later in the night once their bikes had been fixed.
Bradley Wiggins put on a storm of cycling and former skier Alain Baxter put in an appearance for his first cycle race of his career and gave an amazing performance as he stomped through the sprint with a sub 12 second ride in the flying 200m sprint. Excellent!

Today was meant to have involved some cycling. All was fine until I woke up with bad knee pain (again). I was talking with Mom yesterday anyway about strapping it up or putting a knee brace on it at some point. I did a google search this morning on the subject and matched my symptoms with those of PCL sprain - pain on hyper-extension of the knee and most certainly made worse by straightening it out - all the pain is in the right area and fits in so well with what I read. However, I cannot physically do anything in terms of strapping/bracing etc until I have seen the physio which will be after xmas now. So in the meantime it's back with the anti-inflammatories when really needed and trying to take it easy when I can

I will not, however, let the pain stop me from riding in MCC track champs on 20th December.

Revolution 22

Chris Hoy made an emphatic post-Olympic return to track racing in last nights Revolution 22. He featured in his usual events - the sprint and keirin. At the other end of the scale Sam Harrison and Ruby Miller both consolidated their positions in Future Stars. And again there was another intriguing Sprint/Endurance face off.

Elite events

Sprint - Chris Hoy
6k scratch race - Peter Kennaugh
Womens 5k points - Sarah Reynolds
Mens 10k points - Luke Roberts
1k Madison TT - Ed Clancy & Steven Burke
Womens 500 TT - Jo Rowsell
Womens 6 lap dash - Hannah Mayho
Mens 10k scratch - Rob Hayles
Revolution keirin - Dave Daniel
Invitation keirin - Chris Hoy

Future Stars events

Girls 5k points - Laura Trott
Boys 5k points - Sam Harrison
Girls 6 lap dash - Lucy Garner
Boys 6 lap dash - Sam Harrison
Girls 5k scratch - Harriet Owen
Boys 5k scratch - Sam Harrison

Revolution 21 saw a 750m flying start challenge between the Sprint and Endurance guys, with Endurance taking first blood. This time saw a face off over 1km with a standing start. Would this be a chance for the fast-twitchers?

The result was evident from the first lap, with the sprinters opening up a huge advantage – with Staff putting in an awesome 17.9 opener – from then on in, the Endurance guys were unable to do very much about it. A score settled then…

Result
Sprint Team- 58.832
Endurance Team - 1.01.438

Revolution 21

The Revolution series began in earnest on Saturday night, and it made for an excellent night. Seating tickets had sold out way before the event and there were only a few standing tickets left, so capacity crowds were on the boards.

On top of the track events, there was the thrill of Rollapaluza track centre which was a popular place all night. Unfortunately I haven't got the results from that event, but I have for the track events.

Elite events
Motor-paced scratch race - Geraint Thomas
Women's 10k points - Alex Greenfield
Scratch - Brad McGee
Women's scratch - Becky James
Sprint - Matt Crampton
Madison 1k TT - Ed Clancy and Steven Burke
International revolution keirin - Matt Crampton
Points - Chris Newton

Special event just for this night - Flying 750m team sprint - Endurance riders v sprinters
Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas & Steven Burke beat Jamie Staff, Jason Kenny and Matt Crampton

Future Stars events
Girl's points - Ruby Miller
Boy's 6 lap dash - Sam Harrison
Girl's scratch - Harriet Owen
Boy's points - Sam Harrison
Boy's scratch - Kian Emadi

Sam Harrison leads the Future Stars so far in season.

Brad McGee has used this Revolution night to showcase his talents before retiring from racing and concentrating on coaching. After a video clip of his previous races on the big screen, Brad was given several victory laps with a guard of honour compiling all the night's riders on the track with their bikes on their rear wheels forming an archway for him to ride through.