Surrey League Crowhurst 2/3 Road Race

"So whats the plan then", asked Sylv. "Er... how about we stay up front and see what happens", I replied, ever so wisely ;-) Well that's the short version. I probably rambled on about breakaways and keeping an eye on London Dynamos and that ex-rower bloke but hey, whatever! Now apparently yesterday the weather was predicted to be rainy, windy and cold. At the race briefing small hard white stony stuff fell briefly from the heavens. I won't lie to you - I got a bit scared. Anyways no inclement weather materialised so if you DNSd. HA... shame on you!

At 1.30pm I along with 58 other blokes and Danielle King from Vision 1 Racing (Nicole Cooke's Team) - I didn't know that, thanks Michelle - started riding our bikes quite fast. Oh...and the race circuit - 9 laps of a 6 mile flattish loop.

Now have you ever raced and said to yourself I'm gonna move up on the next lap and this maneovere seems to become a real long drawn out and very fatiguing affair? No? Well you're better than me cause that pretty much describes how things typically happen in my first few races of the season.

To prevent this problem occurring you could put yourself in a good position during the neutralised section - so thats what I did. The phalanx of orange jerseys that threatened to engulf the entire peleton in last weeks Road Race was disappointingly not present this time. Yes, the In Gear juniors were I was told racing in many different places. Nevertheless they still had a few members racing and it was there not so youngish veteran leader of the pack Jason Salter that began to animate the race as soon as the flag dropped.

In my experience flat fast circuits don't tend to be a good breeding ground for breakaways but surprise surprise I found myself in the first meaningful break after only 3 laps. A Dynamo rider set the tone with a gap of 50 metres on the bunch. While Sylv stood guard at the front I decided to burn my first match of the day. We touched base with my match burning rather brightly and despite a slight buffeting from the head wind I immediately shot to the front to give my breakaway partner a chance to stop panting. I think Justin Callaway (DHCyclesport.co.uk) bridged across soon after and he was then followed by the junior rider that came 2nd in the race Sam Allen (awcycles.co.uk.). A few minutes later there were six of us in total and through n' off was almost executed to perfection. Did our gap ever get up 30 seconds who knows? I know when I looked back I couldn't see the bunch. Surprise!... the bastards rolled through like an express train.

Now Sam Allen and Craig Stevenson (boneshakersbikes.com) and a couple of others were dangling a few feet ahead of the bunch in a seemingly innocuous position. Typically with the break caught the bunch eased up and we all became indifferent to the small group of soft peddling chancers that formed 40 metres ahead of us. Chapeau to them cause I'm guessing once they were briefly out of sight they must of absolutely drilled it cause we didn't ever get close to them again.

I tried again to initiate a chase group and a few of us briefly had the break at around 30 seconds at one pint. Someone from from Dulwich Paragon kept shouting "Push", "Push", "Push", like a demented mid wife. I must admit I resented his tone of voice and style of persuasion and all he succeeded in doing was pissing everyone off, I'm sure. So with groups rhythm broken we said, "Hello" to the Bunch again.

Now you get a lot of time to look around and see who's who in bunch racing. I'd heard about the phenomenon that is ex rower Angus MacAlister (Norwood Paragon) but was yet to see him in the flesh. At 6ft 5inches + he rode like an ugly duckling. He was pedaling a big gear at a commuter paced cadence and whenever he tried to jump away he resembled and old Mercedes Diesel Estate trying to get going up a hill.

As my Dad would say though, 'he's clearly not big for nothing'. After a few more breakaway attempts from the very bouncy Jason Salter (In Gear), 1 or 2 Dynamo riders and yours truly the big guy took advantage of the weary bunch in the few remaining laps. It wasn't exactly effortless the way he pulled away and he wouldn't get any 'style' awards but then there wasn't any shoulder rolling swaggering nonsense either. The big man seemed perched in front of us all for a minute, almost daring us mortals to bridge across. Too late. The Mercedes engine was now well fired up, he crested one of the lumpy bits and wasn't seen again until we crossed the finish line.

So that was that then. Well no not quite. The ever present Dave "smooth like butter" Kennett (Norwood Paragon) gave it some and was chased down; Hal (ACC) stayed true to his word and came to the front third of the bunch in the latter stages and then London Dynamos launched a misfiring sprint train for their rider number 55. Martin Garratt (London Dynamo) the only guy with skinnier legs in the race than me was at the head of the train initially but they either started too early or weren't strong enough cause their 'sprint man' was already 2nd wheel with around 2k's to go.

To counter this problem some of the recovering Dynamo riders jumped in front again to save 'sprint man' from going to early. So there we were then 1k to go and I'm 3rd wheel - Danielle King was on my wheel and Sylvain "Racer-boy" Garde was behind her.

We hit the 200 metre to go point and I did a pretty good boomerang impression while, most importantly, Sylv got the bunch sprint. OK so I'd be lying if we planned it like that but it worked out pretty good. Sylv may well recall he did me a similar indirect favour two and half years ago, at Palace, which got me up to 2nd cat for the first time.