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Sunday road racing May 15th
I rode over to Cranfield to try out the newly established Central League's only regional A of the season (I think) on the Astwood circuit. It was a bright and chilly morning, great to see some familiar faces from the last few seasons of racing who I haven't seen this year as their clubs are now part of the Central League and no longer in the Eastern league with CCA.
The circuit is a fairly flat course with two vague drags either side of the circuit, but mainly a fast moving race. To stay up the road in a break you'd need to be riding around with an average speed of over 27mph as this was more or less the speed of the bunch which made it hard for a break to get away, I had a dig and spent half a lap up the road firstly on my own then joined by a couple of guys from TMG Horizon and CC Luton for a bit before begin caught by the bunch. Needless to stay the race ended in a bunch sprint. Not for me though, along with over half the bunch we were caught behind a crash about 200 yards from the finish line. Touch of wheels bought 2 riders down hard and put a lot of us in the ditches either side of the road. One guy from Equipe Velo didn't get up so an ambulance was called and the road was closed off, I hope that it wasn't anything too bad but it didn't look too good.
At least riding there and back from Letchworth made the day a good work out, having ridden the 25 on Saturday I knew it was very unlikely I'd be doing anything apart from riding around in the bunch on Sunday so the extra mileage made it a decent day's training, 106 miles at a notch over 22mph in total in the end. Leffe's never tasted so good...
Meanwhile, Neil Murphy was riding over in the ERRL's Ken Wright memorial RR over near Colchester. He spent 35 miles away in a break of 8, joined towards the end of the race by another 8 riders and managed to pick up 8th place in the finishing sprint. For Neil this is his 6th race on the trot finishing inside the top 10. It's great to see him in form and picking up a load of points and good placings in these races. A win is just round the corner...
The circuit is a fairly flat course with two vague drags either side of the circuit, but mainly a fast moving race. To stay up the road in a break you'd need to be riding around with an average speed of over 27mph as this was more or less the speed of the bunch which made it hard for a break to get away, I had a dig and spent half a lap up the road firstly on my own then joined by a couple of guys from TMG Horizon and CC Luton for a bit before begin caught by the bunch. Needless to stay the race ended in a bunch sprint. Not for me though, along with over half the bunch we were caught behind a crash about 200 yards from the finish line. Touch of wheels bought 2 riders down hard and put a lot of us in the ditches either side of the road. One guy from Equipe Velo didn't get up so an ambulance was called and the road was closed off, I hope that it wasn't anything too bad but it didn't look too good.
At least riding there and back from Letchworth made the day a good work out, having ridden the 25 on Saturday I knew it was very unlikely I'd be doing anything apart from riding around in the bunch on Sunday so the extra mileage made it a decent day's training, 106 miles at a notch over 22mph in total in the end. Leffe's never tasted so good...
Meanwhile, Neil Murphy was riding over in the ERRL's Ken Wright memorial RR over near Colchester. He spent 35 miles away in a break of 8, joined towards the end of the race by another 8 riders and managed to pick up 8th place in the finishing sprint. For Neil this is his 6th race on the trot finishing inside the top 10. It's great to see him in form and picking up a load of points and good placings in these races. A win is just round the corner...