A long day in the break

Keith Simpson Memorial Road Race - 27/05/2007 - Harsthead Moor, Yorkshire

Gareths race diary..

'After some poor luck and illness recently, I hadn’t actually finished a road race let alone be competitive. Therefore, I was keen to make amends and go race distance and as hard as possible. As we lined up on the start line for the first of 14 laps of the 5 mile circuit I was near the front and as soon as the flag was dropped after 100 metres I was off taking James Coleman of Witham Wheelers with me. After riding the Lincs League during the week I knew James was riding strongly and he worked straight away as we pulled a small gap clear of the bunch. As we approached the top of the main climb on the circuit I could see Julian Ramsbottom pulling a small group over to us as the bunch were almost making contact. As soon as Julian joined us with about 6 other riders, we continued to work and the elastic to the bunch snapped and we had a handful of seconds. As the laps passed we continued to work well, even though it was hard to find a rhythm on such a small hilly circuit, and after 4 laps we had a minute and a half.

As the laps progressed, after an hour and 40 mins, my legs were starting to feel the effects of the lack of racing miles recently and I was tiring as we approached the deciding part of the race. With 3 laps to go, we had 4 mins on the bunch and a prime lap split our lead group of 9 riders with 2 riders clipping away holding a 10 second lead. With Julian now driving the break and doing most of the work there was another attack and this time Julian went with it taking another 3 riders with him aking 5 in the lead and I was still in a group of 4 just a few seconds behind. As we took the bell my legs had completely gone and I nearly got dropped the last time up the climb. Luckily the finish was flat and my sprint was good and I was second in our group to take 7th as Julian Ramsbottom took a well deserved win.

On the day the strongest rider won and I was happy to be in the break for 70 miles and get a good work out and actually finish the race'.