Super 4, Bickerstaffe RR
Time and again I get too carried away with myself in races, doing too much, covering too much and not being there at the pointy end of the day. Slowly but surely I am learning… ish.
It was a nice, dry evening yesterday although with a stiff breeze. Once the lead car pulled away at the start of the race there was no real acceleration, with everyone happy to sit on a Liverpool Century rider at fast club run pace for a couple of miles. When we got to the T-junction just before the finish I put in just a very little dig to try and wake people up and miraculously got a bit of a gap with Mike Bell coming along with me. This only lasted a half a mile before we were caught & Mike immediately jumped with George Bell (no relation) on his tail and me following. Again we got a gap straight away and it was looking good for a half a lap until a few strong riders behind got their heads together and jumped over to us to make a lead group of 8. In general everyone worked well (with the exception of George who was obviously suffering and later was gapped from our group) and we quickly our lead was described as ‘massive’. That’s how things stayed, our group working well, everyone taking turns, for the best part of an hour until we got the bell at which point there were a few accelerations which were neutralised. On the drag up the HQ, Karl Smith put in a really solid jump, followed by John Fiddies, I waited for someone else to close the gap, they didn’t & I hesitated a fraction too long & they were gone. A few of us worked well to try to close the gap but it seemed that very quickly focus switched to racing for third. For a race like this I’d rather go for the win than wait and sprint for third which meant that by the time the sprint came around my legs were relatively empty & I came in last from our group so 7th on the night. No win or place but a really good, solid workout. Great racing. Upwards and onwards!