Started off from central Peterborough with Roland. After going to the loo (!), found our starting pens. Well not quite as easy as that, seems there was a last minute change in the race gate order & had to fanny around finding mine. However waiting in the sun was not too bad. Called ‘onto the blocks’ C. 11:50, younger racers rolled out ahead of us, then we were off!
Not too quick a start, I settled in about 10th place (thought there were around 50 in our age cat, but according to the start sheet there were 106). It was not long before we started to pass riders from younger age groups who had clearly been dropped, which I though was odd. Later this caused a bit of a problem as some of them were clearly dawdling along, meandering over the road & in the racing line! There were a few sharp words had! Also, some younger riders tried to jump onto our group, which was rather unsettling. Passing larger groups of riders, I had to be careful not to lose contact with our leading riders – tempting to sit in with the slower group, thinking there was a drop in pace, when the riders were getting away off the front! I kept alert & did not let this happen. In fact, concentration was the name of the game. It was clear from early on that we were in a full-on race, nobody was working with anybody else (despite trying to organise things from time to time), but most were riding to a good standard. Playing cat & mouse with the long Fen roads with the cross/head winds was sort of good fun (if that’s how you like to get your kicks!).
About 1 hour in, in a small village, parked car on the right hand side. We are going slightly downhill, quite quickly. Shouts in the group in good time, chap just in front & to the left of me sees the hazard, looks over his left shoulder, wobbles, clips the rider in front, loses control and BANG, down he goes right under my front wheel. I think to myself “I’m gone” and brace for impact, but by some miracle he falls off to the left, his bike goes right & go between the small gap (6”?) between them! Wow! This shook me up & for a few miles I was quite jumpy & nervous. I saw a number of people down receiving treatment, so there were a fair few crashes on the day.
Out onto the Fens, I was feeling fairly good & made the mistake of going onto the front a few times. Big error as I became quite tired, and then somebody decided to try to break away! This was followed by counter attack after counter attack. I had to dig really, really deep to hang on, but managed to get back every time! Very relieved when a truce was called for a while!
Finally the end was in sight (well, counting down the km on the computer!). The crowds in Yaxley (and I mean crowds!) were awesome & spine tingling to get that support, urging us on towards the finish. I could feel my calves beginning to cramp, so finished off my drink & stretched when conditions allowed. I had visions of repeating my agony with cramp during the SICC RR, and I kept repeating “don’t you dare!” over & over. With a few km to go, a little bit of silly attacking was going on, but nobody stood any chance of breaking up the group at that stage into a cross/headwind. Final blast across the line & it was over for another year. I finished in the bunch, at the time of writing joint 9th in my age category (55-59), and something like 373rd out of 4816 riders, although there is some confusion about the numbers/age groups. I don’t think anybody from our age group managed to make a break-away stick (not completely sure about that), and we were not passed by anybody. There seems to be some confusion about the results at the time of writing (08.06.16), due to some riders starting in the wrong groups?
Official results in .PDF format…
The bike did everything I asked of it, very happy with the wheels. The support around the course all day was fantastic, organisation was great. Overall I managed to stay alert, upright & in one piece. Chatting at the end a few of us came to the conclusion that quite a few ‘racers’ had simply applied for a racing licence to get into the early start gates. Not sure what the organisation can do about this, if anything. It did not cause a major problem with our group, but it had the potential to.
I have already entered for next years event, 04.06.17 is in the diary!
Richard Neil
