Hog hill 3/4's 25/6

[carl f]

Over to Redbridge with Ed and Peter to try my luck on this course. Never raced it before apart from the (non draft) dragonslayer duathlon last year so kind of knew what i was in for. They made it clockwise instead of anti this week which took out the short sharp hill but made a nice long drag up to the finish line in the opp direction. Race stayed together for the whole time apart from one or two solo attacks which soon got reeled in. Me Ed and Peter having good turns on the front at times but not many others wanting to do any work apart from the same 3 or 4 faces
This went on for the whole hour until the final lap which picked up pace and a few of us attacked on the final drag inc lots of peeps i hadn't seen all race!. I got 5th position just behind 3rd and 4th and not much behind 1st and 2nd. Ed and Peter for all their efforts 12th/13th
This is the 1st 5 points i have officially scored as a 4th cat now as i realised last week after a chat with BC my points at CP the other week don't count as i was racing on a prov not full licence

Cats 3/4s
1 Craig Joy VC Elan
2 Guther Zechmann Team Zappis s/t
3 Patrick Martin Wynda Milla
4 Rob Purcell Mountain Trax
5 Carl Ferri Addiscombe CC
6 Nick White East London Velo
7 Simon Bateson East London Velo
8 Julian Mills Corley Cycles Cervelo
9 Jeremy Boss CC Ashwell
10 Berni Charlick CCB
11 Patrick Hayes Victoria CC
12 Peter St Aman Addiscombe CC
13 Ed Osbourne ACC

[stamourp]

Thanks for writing this up Carl, and congratulations on your position. I'd concur there weren't many prepared to do the work, and between Addiscombe riders we probably did 70% of it, Carl the most. The wind was stiff making break aways difficult when combined with the sharp hills at Hogs Hill.

By the bell no-one had successfully made it stick and it all came down to the last two corners. Carl was on the ball and in the winning group, whilst Ed and I missed the gap and brought it home ahead of the chasing pack. Indeed there were people who had been skulking away at the back who miraculously came to life on the last climb having done diddly squat for the last hour. Still, I suppose thats tactics for you.

The field wasn't too large so I'd hope to be able to give this series another go in the remaining two rounds to try and pick some 'easy' points up.

Kind regards

Peter