Its All Starting to Pay Off

Tonight was the start of the Yorkshire Spring Classic Series at Tockwith. The there are two series, the spring and summer and each has six events. 

It was a bit hectic setting out, because I was late home after playing too much pool at the squash club, so when we got there (after getting lost in an industrial estate), I had 20 minutes to give my bike a quick clean from saturday's ride, to restrict the gearing to junior level and sign in. I had 2 minutes to spare before the race started, so I did a couple of sprints on the finishing straight.

Thankfully, the rain had stayed off and the was a light breeze blowing into the finish. About 60 riders had turned up for the 4th category race (I was number 59), and there where to be two primes (pronounced preemes, Becki!), one at 15 laps and the other at 10. 

When the race started, I immediately felt the late nights I had spent revising sapping the energy out off my legs, and the fact that I had done close to no warm-up and had a meagre lunch of soup  didn't help.

However, I was determined not to come out of this race empty handed, so with two laps to go the first prime, I attacked, and only one rider went with me. 

We built up a pretty decent gap, off maybe 10 seconds, but more than enough to keep the peleton away. Me, knowing that there would be headwind coming into the finishing straight, I let the other rider go round the last corner first and open up his sprint, however, I over took him with about 10 metres to go to the line and took the first prime, a decent £20. 

Then, for the rest of the race I stayed in the peleton, conserving my energy for the final sprint, or late attack that might happen. 

With 7 laps to go I attacked with a fellow junior, and two other riders followed us. I opened up a gap over the main bunch and the break worked well for about half a lap, but then everyone was knackered and gave up. I, determined, carried on but was eventually caught with 3 laps to go.

From two laps to go, I worked my way up the group knowing that a bunch sprint was going to happen. On the bell, the dirt wheelers team was busy (like Becki's Mum) organising themselves into a lead out train, and on the penultimate straight I tried in vain to get onto their sprinters wheel. I entered the last corner in about 8 place, and opened up my sprint. 

After gaining on everyone in front, and passing half, I settled for 4th place, and my first British Cycling license points, 6, to be precise. 

Thats all from me, and once again, thanks for reading.