Day 1 Stage 1 80km Road Race
Felt comfortable in the bunch. Narrowly avoided a crash
on the first lap, which unfortunately brought down local
rider Martin Haworth (Barton Wheelers) who suffered
a broken collar bone. We wish him a speedy recovery.
A group of riders escaped on the second lap, and there
lead hovered around the 1m30 mark for the next 3 laps.
Another crash on the 4th lap saw another 2 riders come
down, before the heavens opened, and the whole race
got very dangerous with the mixture of mud and torrential
rain making racing difficult. The leading bunch were
caught on the final lap, with one rider staying out
in front, it was down to the inevitable bunch gallop
for the line with the lone escapee hanging on to take
first place. I remained in the centre of the bunch,
and came over the line with the same time.
Day 1 Stage 2 4.2km Time Trial
The afternoon time trial was held in drier conditions
with a freshening breeze making the short blast a challenge.
Not a specialist in very short time trials, and riding
a standard road bike without tri-bars I came home in
6m58s. Local rider Kyle Byers did 6m 38s, with National
Junior 10 champion Jamie Atkins leading the field home
in 5m50s. An astonishing ride to take over a minute
out of me in such a short distance, and a clear 13 seconds
ahead of the best of the rest.
Day 2 Stage 3 88km RR
Sundays hillier road stage was always going to be a
test of my endurance having had little training through
the winter, so I made the decision to stay in the bunch,
and hope to get round for a quality workout.
An early break got a maximum lead of 1m 40s, with the
lead generally hanging at just over a minute. The fast
pace, eventually got too much for me on the second to
last lap, and I lost contact with the bunch up the climb.
I continued to ride round to the finish line, where
I called it a day.
The stage was won out of the break, with Kyle Byers
(Scunthorpe Polytechnic) unlucky to be caught just before
the line after an attempt at a ‘long one’
from about 3km out.
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