Gareth digs deep to stay in touch

Darley Moor RR - 21/06/2006 - nr Ashbourne, Derbyshire

Gareth rode the Darley Moor circuit race on Wednesday evening 21st July.

Gareth race diary..

'I had pretty tired legs from pushing myself in a 10TT the night before and tonight was going to be another hard ride in the E/1/2 event in preparation for the National Team Time Trial in a few weeks.

In order to get the most out of the race, I went straight on the attack in the first 200 meters and stayed away for a lap before going with the next move which contained Llewellyn Byrne (Science in Sport.com). We worked quite well together but I was suffering with no power in the legs but still managed to pull through. Unbelievably we were caught with 5 to go and I went with the next move which was also caught and then I went again with a Derby rider and we stayed away for 2 laps before being joined by Barry Charley (Parker International). The other 2 were working well but I was really stuffed with 2 laps to go and could hardly hold their wheels in the tailwind where we reaching 34mph.

I dug really deep to stay in touch and it hurt. I watched Charley go in the final kilo but I didn't have the heart or really the legs to jump around the Derby rider and challenge Charley so we just hung on to the finish as the bunch closed us down to a few seconds and I got 3rd'.