Bill Jinks Memorial Road Race

Today was a glorious 20 degree day in Coventry, the setting for the Bill Jinks Memorial, a 2/3/4 category race with a pretty strong field of riders due to the ever increasing popularity of the sport. It was to be raced around a fairly short course at 6.4 miles, with 2 short hills thrown in for good measure, one being on the run in to the finish line. It looked to be a perfect breakaway course, with a rolling profile and lots of corners, so my plan was to attack hard early on in the race.

We rolled out for the neutral section with riders jostling for position early on, I placed myself in the top 20 riders ready for the early attacks. Immediately 2 guys went up the road with a small gap, however as is often the way, the first attack was brought back fairly quickly. Next up I attacked out of a corner and moved away from the peloton fairly quickly, my first thoughts were "crap... nobody is coming...", however after about 2 miles on my own I looked back to see Adrian Bird (Rapid Performance Coaching RT) moving up, so I sat up took a drink and when he latched on, we went full gas to increase our gap! We worked well together for 1 lap, and soon saw 2 other riders bridging across, as they reached us it became clear that Bird was struggling, and he dropped back to the bunch. So I began working with my new companions Matthew Bonehill (Stafford CC) and James Ratcliffe (Fred Williams RT).

 Breakaway

Large gap to the bunch.

We pushed really hard for over a lap and pushed the gap up to 40 seconds, before settling into a rhythm together. As the race went on, the gap was held at 40 seconds for 3 laps, but with 5 laps to go it was clear that the chase had sped up behind us, and after 35 miles we were swept up by the bunch. This was when the decisive move came from Tom Black (Cycle Premier RT), taking advantage of the tired legs in the bunch he countered with a huge attack on the hill to the finish line, pulled out a sizeable gap, and was never seen again as the bunch messed around behind.

With 2 laps to go I launched another attack and got away again, once again James Ratcliffe was there along with 2 others we worked to bridge up to Black, but we could only stay away for 1 5 miles before heading back into the bunch. At this point my legs were really starting to hurt and after one more futile attempt to get away I was resigned to finishing in the bunch, as 3 other guys clipped off the front to stay away. I didn't really have the legs for a full-on sprint so just stayed in the bunch and held my pace to the line, riders blew all around my in the last 500m and I ended up around 20-25th as we crossed the line.

Very happy with how my legs felt today, but with only 3 riders against a chasing bunch it was always going to be tough to stay out for 60 miles. Nevertheless it is encouraging to see the legs performing well early season. Hopefully there is much more to come! Next weekend is the Ham Hill RR.

Ciao.