Medway Velo arrived in force at Redbridge for 1st round of San Fairy Ann Spring Circuit race with the solitary 1 rider, me, don’t blame the others tho, weathers been crap lately, although luckily today was just windy. Good atmosphere with plenty of people racing, so looking forward to it. Race length was only 40km so action right from the start, hard race from start to finish, plenty of solo breaks going off but getting pulled back with the headwind. With about 16km to go, felt good and 4 of us had just established a promising gap, and I punctured!
Thought that was the end of it momentarily, gutted, very unlikely I could run back up the hill, get my spare, change wheels and get back in the race by the time the front guys came back round, but thought, he who dares wins, let’s have a go! So sprinted up the hill like a slow asthmatic runner in cycling shoes (I was definitely not designed to run!) and with massive oxygen debt changed the wheel like some uncoordinated baboon just in time as the front boys came round who had just caught 2 of the 3 escapees. The other lad was well away, and rode brilliantly onto win. While I was recovering from the running part of my race 2 guys attacked across to the leader, as I felt like I was dying I couldn’t go with them, so waited till two laps to go then attacked, another guy followed and we got away, I attacked him up the hill to take 4th.
Good start to the season, one of those races you curse all the way through saying why am I doing this, then afterwards, you wanna go again!
Sam