Cherry Valley pair suffer in Yorkshire

Tumbys Road Race - 20/08/2006 - Bolsterstone, Sheffield

Gareth and Andy rode the Tumbys road race at Bolsterstone, just north of Sheffield on Sunday 20th August. Gareths race diary……

‘After a quick warm up around the circuit, I knew this wasn’t my kind of race. It was less than 2 miles around with a climb up one side and a nasty 44mph descent down the other and a flattish finish. The only thing I had in my favour is that it was very windy and it looked like it might rain.

The race started after 1 lap neutralised and as expected a break went straight away, by the time I had pondered whether to jump across to it Andy made the move and was already driving the break hard a lap later. Not liking the course too much I was quite happy to sit at the front and cover the moves. Unfortunately, when the break had 30 seconds Andy could no longer stand the pain in his foot and had to pull over and retire.

After several attacks, I just couldn’t get a move going and so rested back in the bunch for a while. As the 27 laps ticked by I decided to move back to the front and the miles on this tough course started to take their toll I tried to move clear again. This time, I tried to jump across to Andys former team mate Adam Mitchell who had been out alone in front for a lap, I jumped across to Adam but he couldn’t hold my wheel on the climb and Neil Beasley (Ashfield RC) joined me and we started working. We had a gap and a few laps later we were joined by several others. This time we got a decent gap and stayed away. Unfortunately, the nature of the circuit and the number of riders in our group prevented us from closing down the break.

With 2 laps to go Andy Whitehead (Thurcroft CC) jumped clear of our group so shortly after I tried to cross to him. The final time up the climb I was caught by Beasley and a youngster from Merlin Development. At this point my legs deserted me and they jumped away from me and after the break dropped a few riders I eventually came in alone for 8th – thoroughly disappointed in the way I rode’.