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William Loughridge - Real Riders Blog!

William, we saw you join Team Bottrill in 2018, what has that been like since coming aboard?

I joined Team Bottrill midway through the 18 season to see how much further i could go Previous coaches i had used was good, but i felt i had more to give and i needed someone with knowledge and experience to bring me up another level, that someone was Matt, he is a legend of the TT scene and the Team is at the top of their game in the UK.

After the first consultation with Matt I knew I had made the right choice, I learned so much during that conversation I couldn't wait to get started .

In the following weeks of the 18 season i picked up the Ulster 10 & 25 masters TT titles and PB’ing in the 19’s for 10 TT’s , something i thought i never could achieve. These performances where partly down to pacing and race strategies that Matt and Simon had implemented, threshold power had also increased to level a that had never been to before.

Team Bottrill is what i had been looking for, although i’m based in Northern Ireland, with social media and regular team correspondence, i feel very much part of it now, it's great to see everyone in the team achieving their goals, which is highly motivating for everyone.

2. How has the winter training been going?

Winter training has been good, there's no junk miles every session has a purpose . We discovered a number of areas that i am weaker on and currently working on those.

I set up a new business in 2018, and ended up overworking myself in December so had to take a bit of downtime to recover, but we have come back strong again and back on track in a short period of time, we just have to manage my fatigue and stress loads and Simon will adjust the training accordingly 3. Which MBPC coach are you with and how does it differ to what you've done in the past?

I was paired up with Simon Beldon, a slightly older duffer than me, and unbeknown to me at the time, he turns out to be one of the fastest auld duffers in the UK. We clicked straight away, Simon has been brilliant and fully understands what it takes to get where we want to be, i have learned a lot from Simon in a very short period of time

A noticeable difference from previous cycling coaches is the attention to CTL, this has made a big difference to my development.

Unfortunately Simon had a very bad biking accident recently and we wish him a speedy recovery, i have no doubt he will return stronger than ever. 4. What are your big targets for 2019 and how motivated are you to complete them?

We have entered the Tour of Cambridgeshire UCI Chrono in June, a podium would be the dream, a top 10 is the goal, and with Matt back in the game and in my age group that is the motivation for a team medal

We will continue to hunt for PB’s in 10’s and 25’s, and Ulster and Irish titles .

We lost one of our fast 25 courses here at home, so we are looking to compete at a few mainland GB 25’s this year to go sub 50. I have managed a low 51 on a bad day on the R25/3H in Wales in 2018. At home there’s a number of sporting TT’s where my power/weight ratio comes into good effect.

5. Which race are you planning to kick the season off with?

Season starts on the 7th April with the local 10 TT series, I’m fully decked out in Team Bottrill Kit for 2019 and looking forward to get racing, so I may look at racing somewhere on the mainland prior to this to get some race mileage in, fully represent the team and be ahead of the game, something that Simon and myself are looking at.

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