Monday 28 March 2011

Braveheart Fund Blog - Early Season

http://www.braveheartcyclingfund.com/DiaryPost.asp?id=1041

I want to thank the Braveheart fund for supporting me this season. It will be a great help

So far this season, I’ve raced twice. The first was the Super Six Round 1 in Gifford where it went really well for me and the team. I was first and Gary Hand got second.

Last weekend I went down to Cumbria to do a round of the CDNW race series. It was 7 laps of a rolling 10 mile circuit just east of Cockermouth. The race had some really fast riders from the top teams doing it so I knew it would be good preparation for the up and coming Premier Calendars.

It started out really fast, lots of attacks. About half a lap in, I managed to get in a break of 7 including riders from Endura racing, Sigma Sport and two from Cycle Premier. The gap from the bunch grew and grew to 3 mins by lap 5. By then we had eased off the tempo a bit, knowing that the finish was only 2 laps away. A couple of riders started to sit on which started to ruin the good pace we were setting, a bit annoying as we weren’t 100% out of danger yet.

Going into the last lap, we had about 2 mins from several chasing groups behind. I was wanting to cut the group down so I attacked with half a lap to go, bringing 3 other rider with me: Scott Thwaites of Endura, Kit Gilham of Sigma and Tom Barras of Cycle premier. 1km to go and a head wind draggy finish, we were evenly matched doing cat and mouse tactics. None of us were wanting to lead out as for sure that would sacrifice 1st place.

It ended up we were going about 5 mph, and all of sudden we caught sight of the chasers just down the road. 2min lead gone in 1 k. Panic set in and Kit Gilham just went for it. I was on his wheel, the other two on mine. I left my sprint too late as Barras and Thwaites blasted pass me where I couldn’t respond fast enough, but I’ll learn from it.


Scott won the sprint convincingly, Barras 2nd and me 3rd. Pity I didn’t win but a good result as I see progression in races down South.

Next race is on home turf, the Rosneath Super Six, so that should be good.

Cheers

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