Lea Valley Road Race 29/06/14
Fri 18 Jul 2014
Lea Valley Road Race 29/06/14
2/3/4 Radwinter Circuit
Summer Series, Despite a few weeks away from racing; touring in Scotland then just some training and a couple of long rides on my own, I felt good at Brickendon in the rain and got a 7th at the ELV Hog Hill leaving me hopeful that I would be feeling quite good when this race rolled round.
My thanks go to Frank who gave me a lift up to Radwinter. Numbers on, quick warm up, race briefing and then we were underway along the short neutralised section along some of the smooth, recently resurfaced roads that will be seeing the Tour whizzing through in a week’s time. Despite my increasing experience, I’m still not particularly fond of moving up in the bunch, so I was last man in the bunch by the time we reached the circuit and remained there or there abouts for the first hour or so of racing. I hadn’t been in any trouble, but it took me most of that time to really warm up and start to feel good. I checked with Frank that we should have around an hour and a half to go, then set about moving forward a few places at a time whenever an opportunity arose. I’d moved up to the front third of the bunch and Frank soon joined me, having waited for the bunch to slow slightly and nipping up the outside to take a good position in the first 20 or so riders.
I’m not entirely sure had happened with various breakaway attempts early on, but there was a group of five up the road and I think they were followed by a second group of two. With the bigger teams of Cambridge CC, ELV and Pro Cycle Hire represented up the road, the last lap was somewhat sedate, with nobody wanting to chase. Frank was briefly in a group of three that went tentatively up the road on an uphill section, but they were steadily brought back. I tried to stay to the outside as much as possible rather than getting sucked back down the group when people came around. That led to a bit of fun when a sizeable chap from Iceni Velo tried to squeeze into my space on Frank’s wheel. I don’t suppose he often encounters people a similar size to him, who’ll stay put when he tries to move into their place, so it took a while before he took the hint and backed off to tuck in behind me.
The run in to the finish was gently uphill, about a kilometre
at somewhere between 2-3% with a brief ramp of about 5%. I came round the last
corner on the outside, but a little further back than I would’ve liked, so started
to put down some power to move up a few places. A big ELV rider accelerated quite
early up the steepest pitch and I weaved through onto his wheel. Now sitting
second wheel on the left hand side as it levelled out again, I hoped that he’d
keep the speed up as I didn’t want to be in the wind just yet. His elbow
started to come out but I stayed put as the head of the bunch spread out across
the road on my right. The sprint opened up and I was momentarily blocked so
didn’t quite get onto the wheel of the CC Ashwell rider passing closest to me.
I eased off a tad as it still felt a little far from the finish to really open
up, but soon after, as I saw two more riders coming through on the right, I put
in a big kick put a bike length or so into them by the line. I was carrying a
fair bit more speed across the line than the CC Ashwell rider, so might well
have gone one place better if I had got on his wheel initially and kicked out
from there, but I finished quite happy with 10th place and another
few points on the way to second cat. Frank said his position coming onto the
climb wasn’t ideal and once he saw a top-15 wasn’t on the cards he backed off
to finish a little further down the bunch.
Jobe Usher