SERRL Horsmonden 20 September 2015

[George]

Felt confident and in good shape for this 3rd cat road race down in Horsmonden kent. The southern part of the course is hilly and tight twisting roads with 3 sets of 1-2 min drags/climbs the northern half was flat and fast with a couple of longer straights and the flat finish through an industrial estate.

We had a great team of Dave K, Marek, Thomas, Paul H & Myself so a good strong team, I was the favoured rider as I was in good form so the pressure was on for a result.
long transfer then 4.5 laps of the circuit, Marek tried the usually early breaks and managed to get a hundred meters up the road on a number of occasions but always came back to the peloton. Pace was not to fast for the first half and Paul suggested everyone was still pretty fresh so I decided to attack on the next lap coming into the hillier sections.

Paul also tried a breakaway just before the climb to Horsmonden but was eventually swallowed up.
With just over 2 laps to go one rider was up the road a hundred meters and had been for half a lap, I attacked real hard up the climb to horsmonden giving it everything in a one chance bid to escape the bunch.
It worked and the rider up the road latched on my wheel. 2 more riders managed to follow. I knew that with the twisty sections and hills I had to really bury myself to get us away, I did the lions share of the work and once into the flatter parts we started to thru and off all together.
It was a good break and we were pretty much all equal on the flat parts, everyone taking strong smooth equal turns. the next lap we had around 23 seconds gap.

Coming into the hills on the last lap I was pulling on the front up the hills as the others were letting the pace drop when they tried, our advantage rose to 1 minute at this point so we knew this was for the win which is a nice feeling.
Was absolutely loving the break today! a couple of miles I knew I wasn’t the strongest sprinter so had to Attack the break but they rode back up to me, in Marsden 1/2 mile to go I attacked hard going into the final sharp corner but they were strong enough to hold on, this left me in the front coming into the sprint and unfortunately they all had a great sprint so I finished in 4th.

Shame not to get the win but still happy to be in the winning break and have a good fun race!
Thans to the others for great team support, unfortunately Dave K punctured on the 2nd lap. We then had the 6 mile ride all uphill back to the HQ, but a beautiful sunny day was perfect conditions for racing.

[Jonathan]

awesome result george