Lining up today were Sam, me, 2nd race Richard and newbie Alex all eager to get stuck in to the fast, flat closed road circuit. The race was run as a handicap & due to numbers I went in to the first group, we had about about 4.15 mins over the chasing group for a race that was 90 minutes plus 3 laps.
Within the first lap our group split in 2 & we went down to 6 riders with just 3 of us working for the first 25 minutes or so, me, Paul Thursfield and Mike Bell, Paul being the strongest of us. Eventually Steve Davies started doing turns too. The whole race, until we were caught was like working in a rapid break, it was super hard. Somewhere along the line we came past Rich and then Alex & I shouted for them to both jump on which they did & once they had got themselves together they took some turns.
About an hour and 20 in we were caught by the flying chasing group lead by Sam and most of our lot managed to get on the tail end. At the end of the 90 minutes, at the start of the final 3 laps, Matt Walls jumped and this caused a further split with Sam going up the road in a small, select group leaving me with Paul Thursfield, Steve Davies & a couple of others dropped from the front group. I was kicking myself because I hesitated when the jump went & then the gap was there & it was too late. Alex and Richard didn’t quite make the move & were in the chasing group.
Sam’s group got a solid gap & then all of a sudden Matt Walls was at the side of the road with a mechanical, then just as quickly he was at the head of our group doing a huge turn before going out the back again. Turns out he had a puncture.
On the last lap Paul came past me on 1 of the last corners & I thought that was it, he was gone but he didn’t keep the effort up and we caught him on the finishing straight. Steve jumped hard for the line, I couldn’t manage to get on his wheel so finished 2nd in our group, 7th overall, 1st in category.
Sam road a brilliant race finishing 3rd overall and both Alex and Richard did great rides considering how hard a day it was.
