While the rest of the team we're down in London riding the Nocturne and Hillingdon GP this weekend, myself and Jo, (our team's guest rider this season) were riding the Holme Valley Wheelers stage race. 2 stages over one day, a individual 10 mile TT and a 30 mile road stage.
Stage 1 the TT. Now never having just ridden a 10 TT, I had no idea what sort of time to expect. The course was hilly, well very up and down, if you call them hill's, out and back on a main road, to a roundabout. There was no rule about not being allowed TT bikes, so like for Malta I rode Steve's TT bike. I was hoping for a top 10 result, so when the results came out I was slightly disappointed to finish 11th in a time of 27:23, I would have liked to do sub 27 time! I came to the conclusion that given the nature of the course I might have been quicker on my road bike, give it was slightly lighter and it was the hill's where I struggled with the TT bike. Jo finished in 9th place with a time of 26:53.
On to the road race, 3 laps of a tough and interesting course. There's no let up in this course it's rolling and up and down the whole way around! Makes for much more interesting racing rather than the usual, wait for the hill, attack, wait for the hill oh yep there goes the another attack!
1st lap, we went down the fast decent, trying very hard to avoid the pot holes! And the straight into the first little kick of the hill, I came to the front and rode hard into the bottom of the hill. I kept it going for as long as I could, but just holding back a little waiting for the counter attack to come, and so it did. One of the Scott Contessa Girls jumped past me, I was straight on her wheel, but then let it go as she just sped away from the rest of the bunch (she was like a mountain goat, the way she went up there!) We left her dangling out front for about a 1/4 of a lap, before she was brought back.
I managed to stay up front fairly easily, working form time to time on the front, Jo too doing her share. Delia Beddis, the Dirt Wheels rider tried a fair few times to split things up. We'd get a small gap on the decent but then it all seemed to come back together again fairly quickly.
Second lap and the pace was pushed a bit higher. Up the two drags and rises of small climbs and then over the top of one the pace was kept on and I felt myself loosing contact with the bunch, the bunch split in 2, Jo being behind me got caught the wrong side of the split! I had nothing left. There were 7 of us in a small chase group, trying to get back to the main bunch. Up the main road, of the most notable hill, and I was hanging on. We we're almost at the top when I was dropped completely! Annoying for one thing, as sounds like the pace dropped after that. For the final lap Jo and chase group managed to make contact once again with the main bunch.
Jo came in to finish 17th and I think, I came in 22nd but losing my place on GC.
Overall a super ride by Jo to finish 8th on GC and me in 22nd! Now I know how Brit felt last weekend at Banbury, I just had nothing left, I seemed to crawl around the last lap!
Anyway I'll move onto the next race, and hopefully a better result!
Iona
Iona at Peterborough Crit
