Report by Paul Butler, Road Race Secretary.
On a warm, dry and (almost) sunny Sunday afternoon we managed to gettogether 17 seniors and 5 youths for our first Club Road RaceChampionships. We invited Avanti and 7Oaks Tri Club to join us who kindly supported us with 4 and 2 entrants respectively.
Thanks to some fantastic volunteers and some very supportive specatators we had a great senior race, a handicap race (to encourage all levels)over 50 mins and 3 laps of the 0.9 mile legendary circuit where BradleyWiggins grew up racing.
Unlike the rest of the year, where we all ride as a team at road races, points for the annual league table were at stake so we raced against each other. As a result everyone was attacking or chasing down breaks throughout in a really impressive display of fast, clean and safe bike racing. It took us 23 minutes of hard chasing initially to bring backthe 6 riders who were set off first with a head start and then a very brief lull (I think my heart rate went down to 170) before the attacks began. With 3 laps to go it seemed like it was going to a bunch sprint when Pete Mahoney slipped away on his own. A couple of big efforts to get across to him failed and Pete was dangling off the front at the bell. The pace was really hotting up at this point and Pete was picked up with half a mile to go as the sprinters came into their own. Here’s my version of the finish – I’d done a bit too much work throughout the race to keep in moving along and I was really hurting, with half a lap to go I had an Avanti wheel (Dan) and he left a gap in front of him (to Lee) so that Lee and Frankie could start their sprint 10 yards up the road. I still got round Dan and Rob still got round Frankie but gettting to Lee was just too much. This all happened because I was racing against Rob not with him so I think that with someone leading a train for me and Rob we would have destroyed them! There’s always next year. Well done Avanti, well done everyone!