It was a 5 lap race of a really nice undulating 9 mile course. I went out pretty easily and sat in the middle of the peloton to try and gauge how it all worked and how quick it was going to be. Within the first lap the pace started ramping up, and then I cornered pretty fast and hit a pothole, sending my only bottle flying into the road. I was pretty annoyed but got stuck in and got on with it, and was very lucky that Max Suttie had my back, and offered me his bottle each time he drank. I think without this I would have been pretty ruined, as it was so sunny, and 40 miles with a super dry mouth would have been horrendous.
I sat quite far back in the peloton until about the 3rd lap, when I started moving up and getting a bit more stuck in on the front. By this point a lead group of 5 riders had made a break and it had stuck about 45 seconds ahead of us. A couple of these riders dropped off and came back to us so we were able to deduce that the lead group had dropped to 3. By about halfway round the 4th lap, I was feeling strong, and as we rounded the sharpest corner on the course, I decided to make a break and see if I could get away. One guy went with me and we got a decent gap on the peloton. Another guy bridged the gap and came to join us, and for about 7 or 8 miles we took turns on the front and ramped the pace up desperately trying to get to the leadout group. We got within about ten seconds, but by this point we'd all been pushing pretty hard and could see the chasing peleton behind us so decided to return to it.
We joined the peloton again with about half a lap to go, and I sat a little way back and started spinning my legs as I knew it was going to come down to a sprint. It was at this point that I saw Max Suttie and Chris King again, both looking very strong and I knew that they are both very good sprinters, so I sat on Max's wheel and tried to stay out of trouble. About 1 mile before the end there was a crash in the group, but I was in a good position and was able to avoid it. We got onto the final straight and everyone started pushing really hard for position for the sprint. With about 400m to go, there was another big crash just in front of me (which resulted in a cracked top tube for the guy involved!) but somehow luckily I avoided it again. I gritted my teeth and really sprinted for the line following Chris King. I went past a fair few people and ended up 9th overall and 6th in our sprint (the lead group never got caught). Chris put in an awesome effort and ended up 3rd in our sprint and 6th overall. Max unfortunately got boxed in for the final sprint so was unable to fight for the line, but had an awesome ride on what was also his first road race.
Im ecstatic with my position, as I genuinely thought I'd get dropped within a couple of laps! All in all it was an awesome day of racing in the sunshine. Massive thanks to Max for driving down and for all of his help with water etc, and a big thanks to Chris for all his help in the race also. Absolutely loved it, so am racing the same course next weekend. Think I'm addicted! The picture below (courtesy of Tavistock Wheelers- Northshore Gallery) is of the sprint.
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