wet day out for Gareth

Lincoln Grand Prix - 13/05/2007 - Lincoln

Gareths race report

'The day started dry and relatively mild (compare to last years rain soaked freezing cold race). As the race left Yarborough sports centre and hit the Burton Road for the first time, all 170 riders had the same quest of staying near the front of the bunch to get a good position for the first ascent of the 1:6 Michael Gate. This then led to many crashes in the first few miles. As the race descended through Burton Village for the first time we were hitting 38mph to the A57 where the speed never dropped as we rapidly approached the first ascent of Michael Gate.

Approaching the climb I was confident with my placing in the bunch about 60 riders back from the front. Unfortunately, first time up the climb someone un-shipped their chain right in front of me and for the second year running I was baulked on the climb. After a furious chase through the castle square and along the Bail Gate, the pack of 170 riders was now scattered across Lincoln. Eventually as we approached Burton Village for the second time the groups started to settle and I was in the second group on the road containing some 40ish riders. I was in good company such as Kevin Dawson, Mark Lovatt, Richard Prebble and a few of the Aussies, some Dutch riders and 2 of the recycling riders.

With a race total of 11 laps our group had a tough race ahead to stay in the 10-minute time window allowed by the police for closing the roads. As the race progressed I started to climb better but as we approached 3 laps our group, which had been shedding riders each lap was now down to about 20 riders, was black flagged at only 7 minutes down on the race leaders and we had to abandon the race and given an official finish of around 50th + place.

Disappointed as I was at not completing race distance (only 24 miles from the finish), I was pleased with my performance, as I have only raced two1 hour races in the last 6 weeks'.