Thursday, 21st July 2011. 19:00
Great result tonight. I've been missing out on places at Hog Hill for a while. A combination of tactical errors, working for other team mates, and a consistently strong field. I'm sure that the current crop of Eastern Region riders that regularly turn up at the Redbridge Cycling Centre must make it one of the Country's most competitive circuit races.
There were plenty of top riders present. My goal was to nail a top 10 and to just score points and to test my form after a Road Race on the weekend, and a slow recovery from my intense week in Wales.
As always, with such a strong fild, break after break tried to go, but I knew that it was all about the counter-attack in such a strong field. Wojciech Szlachta managed to make a pretty substantial solo gap. Dean Shannon of Orbea chased, and I could see that with a couple more riders dfrom different teams, this might be a move that would stick. 40 mins in, Andrew Griffiths made his bridge, and I was on his wheel all the way. He towed me up to the break and we were 4 for the rest of the race. My clubmates Tao Geoghegan-Hart and Clem Berril did what they could to hold back the chase. From what I hear, so too did Andy Lyons of Orbea - he had 2 men 'up front.'
With the lap counter up, I could see Jamie Sale and Clem Berril making a move to bridge the gap. They got close, almost making contact, before falling back again. But on the las lap, my breakway companions made a move on me on the climb. I was slow to react and it took me all of the last lap to make contact with the other 3 again. now it was a case of who was going to make the first move on the climb. However, it was Jamie Sale of Eagle who made the move, streaking around the outside of us having bridged the gap whilst we in the break marked eachother. My kick wasn't good enough and I finished a solid 5th ahead of the bunch, nailing 14 BC License points, and putting me within 11 points of my 1st Category License.
