150km around a stunning course which basically involved one long straight road, followed by a brief twisty section, a 75km/h downhill section, another long straight road then finished off by a difficult mile long climb, with the finish line just after the summit.
It was a very very tough race, some real strong riders meant the pace was never easy. There were a handful of riders who ride for the likes of Pinarello, Kinesis and PCA Ciclos Uno and have been riding Premier Calendar races while I've been pissing about in Surrey League races! It was also blatently apparent that I am by far not the only student to use University as a front for being a professional cyclist!
The sheer length of the race meant it was a real war of attrition, each time up the climb riders were dropped never to be seen again. I got dropped the second (of 8 ) times up the climb, but fought my way back on tooth and nail with a couple of other riders. After that the pace became a touch more sensible. Although we still averaged 38km/h for the entire 3hrs 55mins of the race.
Around 60 riders took the start, but by the closing laps we had ditched the hangers on, which included most of the Oxford and Cambridge toffs
, there were about 25 guys left. Elite rider Pete Williams (Pinarello RT and Malcom Elliott and Russell Downing's domestique) had ridden everyone off his wheel and was heading to a very impressive solo victory. Another couple of riders were away, both from Loughborough (who dominated the race) and save for one more solo lunatic claiming fourth it was down to a bunch sprint up the final climb. I gave all I had up it but had been cramping up each time we hit the hill the last 3 times so my power was hardly record breaking. I managed to hang on to roll over the line 13th.Which I am a tad disappointed with as I was really hoping for a top 10, and feel I ought to have been up there. But thats racing. It was my longest race to date by far, and certainly the hardest. A real strong field meant there was never really an easy moment, one time along the flat section one rider dragged the whole bunch along at 35mph for literally 8km! And he still rode away in the end for 3rd! Even the quality of the 3rd and 4th cats was much higher than it is around the South East. Perhaps we have it easy down here??
Next stop... South East Regionals...
(There will be a more thorough post mortem on my blog later tomorow, after I've failed another exam
)
... Must have a lot of free time on their hands those Loughborough Uni boys
Oh must be a Cambridge Toff.
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