Pre-race
So onto today! Central Region road race champs. This was an 89 mile race around my local course, the Great Milton circuit which is widely regarded as a fairly flat course with only a couple of short hills and lots of long gentle sections. That said, a race is only as hard as you make it and I had every intention of making this race incredibly tough! Seeing as I live so close I rode over with my team-mate Lawrence for a gentle warm up, so I was ready to go from the gun... That is exactly what happened! I followed a few early moves that came to nought but after about 10 miles a group of us had made a gap from the bunch, and pushed hard to get away. Another small group rode up fairly quickly and soon we had a group of 12 off the front pulling out a significant gap. I was lucky to find myself with a team-mate in the break, Ken Buckley rode himself into the ground in only his second road race ever and never once missed a turn at the front, and this was a great help to me all race. The break worked smoothly for 4 laps with everyone pulling their fair share at the front, and we found ourselves with a gap of 4m51s at one point, it was now that it became clear we would stay to the finish.
AW Cycles riding hard in the break
In the break
On the 5th lap there were some fireworks up Clare Hill which saw us shell 4 riders from the break before the lead group of 8 came back together and continued to work together. As we heard the bell on the last time over the line there was an attack which saw 2 riders gain about 10 seconds and dangle for around 3 miles before we brought them back. As we caught them I put in a big push and rode away with Mike Wragg, we got a decent gap and I pushed on hard, I soon realised this was futile though as Mike refused to come through for a turn, deciding that I wasn't going to waste my efforts dragging someone round the course I sat up and rejoined my companions. It was all cat and mouse and a few more futile attacks went, but as we reached the final drag before the finish it was an 8 man group together, all looking at each other waiting for someone to start the sprint. It was Pete Wager from Felt who started to wind it up from the front, however there was a coming together with two other riders which resulted in the three guys hitting the deck with 200m to go. The sprint carried on up ahead and it was Mike Smith from Corley Cycles who kicked hard past me, I tried to get back on terms but couldn't match his turn of speed, I started to catch up to his wheel in the last 50 metres but by this point he had his arms up and the win in the bag. I rolled over in 2nd, very happy with the result, this was definitely the best road race result of my career, you do however always get a bittersweet feeling with 2nd place... Regional Champion would have been a nice title to have, nevermind! Massive well done to Ken Buckley who despite getting shelled with a lap to go managed to hold off the chase group and take a brilliant 9th place. A brilliant day for AW Cycles Road Team with two in the top 10, a podium, and a strong finish from Lawrence finishing just ahead of the main bunch.
Mike jumps away...
Mike Smith 1st, Me 2nd, Mark Baines 3rd
Podium
I am so happy to finally get a result to show for my hard work, hopefully this is the first of many bigger results to come this year. I have the SERRL 3-Day stage race in Kent next weekend and then its destination Belgium with Lawrence!! Bring on the rest of the season!
Ciao!
