English
This was the final round of the Abergavenny Handicap Series and I was looking forward to getting a good result even after a late night. The weather was dry and sunny but was windy and cold just standing around. As usual I started in the scratch group which had to make up 5 minutes on the lower category riders so we started off hard and fast.
In no time we caught the middle group of 3rd cat riders but this then slowed our pace down as nobody was willing to work and a lot of riders were trying their luck by attacking to get across to the 4th category riders in a small group. After plenty of attacks including some off me resulting in a string of riders stuck to my rear wheel I decided to pick my next attack so that the weaker riders couldn’t follow me. There were four riders up the road by this point with a 30 second gap.
I attacked hard up a short sharp climb and got a good gap only bringing one rider with me who was one of my main rivals. We soon bridged the gap to the four riders and started to drive the break along opening up a good gap on the bunch behind. Soon some of the riders started to tire and one got dropped on the climb I attacked on. We were now in pursuit of catching the front group of 4 cat riders and managed to catch them with 4 miles to the finish line.
We rolled straight to the front of the group and I got myself in a good position for the sprint which was up a gradual climb. With 1km to go we were all together lined across the road all waiting for the first attack. The finish was getting closer and with me not being a sprinter decided to go for a long one at 500 metres to go, I put in a hard effort and had one rider on my wheel I kept going watching the rider behind but with 50 metres to go managed to come around me after I gave him a perfect lead out.
I was happy with 2nd place though and felt that I was riding strong in the race and if you don’t take risks racing then you might not ever win, I also managed to get 3rd overall in the series after only competing in two of the three rounds which was a nice surprise.
I also raced Castle Combe crit last Thursday which is a great training session for mid week but unfortunately I missed the main break and just rolled around to finish. My next big race which I would like a good result in is the Welsh Road Race Championships on the 23rd May!
Ben
