Sunday 23rd March
SERRL, Benendon, 105 km, Cat 2,3,4

The weather this morning was same as last Sunday, cool but sunny, and warming up as the morning wore on, with just a light breeze. Perfect conditions for racing. The roads were a mixture of nice, smooth bitumen (where we had a slight head-wind) and B-class roads which were considerably more rough and bumpy with the occasional pothole large enough to swallow a small oil tanker. In other words, standard road conditions for British cycle racing. I'd never raced on this circuit before so was unsure of the tactics to use before the race however my team mate James P, who won on this circuit last time he raced here, gave me a good description of it. Some flat ground and some rolling ups and downs but nothing steep enough to have to use the small chain-ring. A 53 x 19 is small enough for any part of the circuit unless it's the end of the race and you're really shattered. The race itself consisted of (almost) 6 laps of an 18 km circuit.

The De Laune club had 4 riders for today's race - the best turn-out so far this season. James P and James L who also raced last Sunday, and Ross, who normally races mountain bikes but decided to do some road racing as training for mountain bike races. And myself of course.

The race today started at a not very sedate pace after James P and one of the Arctic boys got on the front and drove the bunch down the first descent at 70 km/h plus. Things soon settled though and the first lap was fairly uneventful with the usual lone rider going off the front, getting a 15 second lead and just sitting there wearing himself out. Why do they do that?! Unfortunately Ross had to pull out during the first lap due to mechanical problems so De Laune was down to 3 riders virtually from the start.

The next 2 laps saw a few attempts to form small breakaway groups. I tried to get involved with one or two of them but nothing looked like getting much of a gap on the main bunch. Toward the end of the 3rd lap though, one of the breaks looked like it might have some chance of suceeding so when one of the guys jumped out of the pack nearing the top of the climb, I chased after him. Almost 10 km later we both managed to catch the 3-man breakaway group and get a rest for a few minutes before joining in. One of the motorcycle escorts told us that we had about 50 seconds lead over the main bunch.

It quickly became apparent that our group was going to struggle to keep our lead because only 3 out of the 5 of us were doing any real work at the front. With a bit of encouragement from Malcolm, the "driver" of the group (and also the biggest and most threatening-looking) the others (an Arctic rider and the guy who chased down the breakaway with me - or should I say, sat on my wheel!) soon fell into line and started working.

James and James, my 2 team mates back in the bunch, worked hard to keep the bunch under control, chasing down anybody who tried to go after us. Unfortunately for us though, after about a lap and a half at the front, the bunch decided to turn up the pace and we were caught nearing the finish line still with 2 laps remaining. Despite the good work of my team mates, with only 3 of us working most of the time, we just couldn't extend our time gap on the bunch enough to discourage them from chasing.

There was little serious action on the penultimate lap. A few riders made some fairly half-hearted attempts to get away but nobody was able to get more than a few seconds on the bunch before being reeled back in. I was half-expecting somebody to attack on the climb with about 20 km to go but it didn't happen.

The last lap started off much the same as the previous lap. I decided to just sit up near the front and try to see establish who were the strongest looking riders and try to go with them if they attacked. One of the suspects attacked and I went with him but unfortunately so did several other riders which spured the bunch into action and we were caught after a kilometre or two. I found myself stuck on the front of the bunch with about 7 km to go and only one other rider willing to go to the front and do a turn. I thought surely somebody will attack the last time up the climb. I waited and waited but the attack never happened. Then about 200 metres from the top, one of the Gemini riders put in a massive effort and got 10 seconds on the bunch in no time. Nobody made much of an attempt to get onto his wheel, maybe because most of us were too tired to do anything about it - the bunch was down to about 20 riders by this time. So by the time we turn onto the finishing road with only about 3 km to go, the Gemini rider was out of sight and the rest of us were racing for second place.

With a few hundred metres to go on the small uphill run to the finish, we had the usual problem of every rider in what was left of the bunch wanting to be at or near the front at the same time. I told myself "don't get boxed in, don't get boxed in" but could I follow my own advice? I got stuck behind a Nico Sport rider who'd spent most of the race getting in the way of others. I eventually managed to get out but it was too late and I didn't really have the legs for it anyway after the work I did in the breakaway earlier. But then I saw my team mate, James L, flying up the right hand side of the road at a great rate of knots and went on to take second place with daylight in third. So it turned out to be a reasonably successful day for De Laune after all.

Unfortunately that's my last race until 12^th April. The next 2 SERRL races on the calendar are for Cat 3 and 4 only and they're both on circuits that suit me well, Sevenoaks and Brenchley. At least it gives me a chance to do something other than cycling for a couple of weekends and hopefully fit in a couple of longer training rides which I really feel like I need.

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Created by Craig Porter, 2003.

Last Modified 24 March, 2003.