English
5th December
Revolution 26 Track Race – Manchester Velodrome
After helping out at Revolution 25 I was really looking forward to be being team manger for the remaining Revolution events, this week I had Mark Griffiths to help out at the Revolution Coach for Team Slicks. Team Slicks are made up of Welsh Future Stars riders and were also lucky to have Welsh Elite Rider Luke Rowe on our team as well as Bradley Wiggins, Leif Lampater and our team captain Craig McClean. Leif was such a nice guy to talk to and really worked well with our other Elite riders as this was his first Revolution.
Team Slicks:
Elite Riders:
Craig McClean (Captain)
Bradley Wiggins
Leif Lampater
Luke Rowe
Future Stars:
Owain Doull
Matt Cross
Robbie Westwood
Amy Hill
Amy Roberts
Sarah Crowley
We had a strong team yet again and after finishing 2nd in the team rankings last time we were looking to go one better and be the winning team. This looked like it was going to be easy with a stronger line up Elite riders compared to last time and this showed straight away in the elite devil scratch race which Bradley won with Luke finishing in 3rd place.
Our future stars failed to be as successful as the last Revolution but all still finished highly in the races. Still racking up the points and putting on a good show for the crowd! Owain managed to hold on to his individual leaders’ jersey but unfortunately Amy Roberts dropped from 2nd to joint 3rd in the girls individual rankings. But by the end of the night not only did we win the Overall team competition for the night making us the leading team in the series but we also won the Italian Pursuit against team Rollers by 9 seconds!!!
What a nights racing and what made it better was looking after the winning team and getting to be involved with some of the most talented youngsters in the country as well as world class elite riders! If you have never had the fortune of attending a Revolution I suggest you book your tickets for the next one on the 16th January.
Event Website: www.cyclingrevolution.com
6th December
Welsh Cyclo-Cross Championships – Crickhowell
After another long night on my feet at the Revolution, my late night driving home and getting to bed until 2.30am (Note: bad preparation for a race as before). The race was local to me so this did give me some time to lie in the morning but was soon up a raring to go. I arrived at the race quite early so that I could watch the youth races which were great fun to watch as the course was muddy and technical! There was consistent rain showers with breaks of sunshine that made the course even harder by the time it came to my race!
My race started fast with Lee taking the lead and I was running in about 6th position all in a line. Half way though the lap I realised I had a rear wheel puncture so had to ride a flat which lost me a couple places before I managed to change on to my spare bike in the pits. I then had some chasing to do…I chased hard and felt strong riding through the slow mud and was riding well through the technical sections and soon got myself in to 4th position closing down on 3rd. This soon come to an abrupt end when I caught some string in my rear mech, I pulled it out and tried to continue by my rear wheel wouldn’t move.
At this point I had dropped back through the field again so I retired from the race and washed my bike off to discover that I had the string caught in my cassette which was blocking my freewheel from moving! It was camouflaged in mud so I had no idea what was wrong with my bike until that point. It was a shame to end my race but I have been lucky with mechanicals this season so can’t complain too much about my misfortune. Lee Williams won the race convincingly on a very fun and sporting course so a well deserved win there!
My next cross race now will be the National Championships on the 10th January but will start doing Newport Velodrome’s Tuesday night track league to keep my speed up through the winter months (and also to have a dry training session for a change).
Ben