Iona at Peterborough Crit

Iona at Peterborough Crit

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Gravesend Crit, 7th October 2012

Well today was another day and like I said yesterday, all was not over yet!

We arrived to find a similar sized field of 13 girls riding, and quite a few who were at Hillingdon the day before.  We set off and on the first lap, the Kingston Wheeler's rider had got herself a small gap off the front.  I found myself closing the gap down on the first lap.  The course is quite technical and I was really pushing to try to catch her on the descent.  We eventually caught her through the bottom technical section.  We entered the hill for the first time.  The hill kicks up at the bottom and then levels out and it's a long drag up to the finish.

We caught her and I came thorough to do some work on the front up the hill.  By the top of the hill I glanced back to see I had a gap, by complete accident, hadn't meant to be away only a lap into the race.  At this point we were gaining on the men's 4th cat bunch.  They had set off a minute in front, but unless they got their act together I was going to catch them. I was away out front for about 3 laps, by the time I got caught, we were 15 minutes in, and the men had moved away.

Sandra, along with a couple of the other girls worked on the front to keep the pace going.  It seemed everyone was happy to sit in the bunch.  With 30 minutes down, I attacked again, this time using the speed out of the  bend to launch an attack at the bottom of the hill and get up the steepest bit.  It worked, although this time the bunch were a bit more keen to chase me down, and a lap later they had caught me again.

My aim was not really to want to stay out there, but just to make the others have to work harder.  We seemed to have reached a stale mate: no one else wanting to make a bid for freedom off the front and the Kingston Wheeler's girl, quite happy to sit on the front of the bunch.

With 2 laps to go, the men's field eventually lapped us, luckily moving quickly out of the way and on with their own race.

Last lap and again the Kingston Wheeler's girl sat on the front of the bunch for the entire lap. Sarah moved up the bunch with half a lap to go, as we entered the technical section at the bottom end of the course.  I came in front so she had a wheel to follow, she was sitting to the left of the bunch, in the wind a bit.  Up the first kick of the hill and no one was making any real effort for a sprint yet.  My first thought was, 'you know what, they're all just going to sit and look at each other and then wait until they can see the line.'  I knew I could go early from the bottom of the hill, the previous attacks in the race had been good practice, so that was the plan!  It didn't really matter then if they did come around me, so long as I got Sarah up the road.

Once we got up the first bit of steepest hill, I glanced back and saw Sarah to my left, (in the wind again!) I came out of the line of riders. I was about second wheel.  I'm not sure if I shouted back at her to get on my wheel, but I remember, turning and pointing at my back wheel, to indicate to her that I was going to go.  I kicked and drilled it up the hill like I had done before.  Only glancing back once we were under the pedestrian bridge and the line was getting close.  Sarah was there, and what was even better was that the bunch were miles off!  I either yelled, "Go Sarah," or was thinking it and was safe in the knowledge that we had easily just got 1st and 2nd!  Crossing the line, Sarah didn't realise she'd won, so I found myself celebrating for her!

A fantastic weekend's racing: great to have strength in numbers, and to work as a team.  Glad that Sarah decided to race on Sunday after all: after Saturday's mess of a race, it took some persuading form all of us, that tomorrow was going to be another day!


Iona