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Registered: 01-2008
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Stourbridge Velo Circuit Races 2 - 09/07/2011


Did the British cycling cat 3&4's circuit race at the Stourport Circuit last weekend starting at 1pm, running for a total of 40 minutes plus five laps. Glorious sunny day but only a small field of I'd guess 20 riders on the custom built tarmac closed road track.

As is usual with this type of race the pace at the start was pretty frantic, this circuit differs to Darley Moor in that it has two banked hairpin bends and two small inclines which really split up the field in the early part of the race, I'd guess after 15 minutes there were about 8 riders in a group at the front of the field with the remaining riders in various different small groups all over the circuit. Then followed the usual pattern of attacks and counter attacks with no one really putting in a hard enough effort to get away from the small bunch.

Unfortunately after about 30 minutes the rider who was in third place in the leading group had an accident in the top hairpin and by the time the remaining riders in the group had taken evasive action there was enough of a gap that it was going to take some serious effort to bring everything back together. A couple of half hearted chases later and the two riders that were ahead of the crash had established a pretty good lead, certainly far enough that no one was going to be able to bridge the gap alone.

We then had the usual pattern of attacking each other within the remaining group of riders rather than working together to try and bring the gap down for a few minutes before we entered the final five laps. This of course results in a low overall pace and that allowed several of the dropped riders to get back onto our group. One rider attacked and managed to get away going up the start finish straight and no one would chase. I'd already decided that I wasn't going to do all the chasing in this race and I was going to sprint at the end for a change.

So I waited for the bunch sprint and went for it coming out of the sweeping bend leading up to the start finish straight on the last lap and finished 3rd in the group and sixth overall. I didn't see the rider who crashed at the end of the race so I'm presuming it was nothing too serious.


I then noticed that five minutes later there was a British Cycling 1's & 2's race taking place so after a quick chat with the race officials I returned the number from race one and entered race two. Just for the fun of it. It was a very small field of only ten riders and right from the gun two attacked and got away, no one seemed too bothered in the group behind and we cruised along happily for a few minutes before the inevitable attacks, chases and counter attacks started. I'm not sure if I was just tired from race one or if the changes in speed in race two were higher but I managed to get dropped from the group and despite riding flat out for the best part of 15 minutes I couldn't get back on terms, I could keep the gap constant but I couldn't close it. So I decided to ease up a little and just rode round hard for the rest of the race but not flat out.

I got lapped by everyone in the race at one point but managed to unlap myself in the sprint at the end and came in last, or 10th depending on how you look at it.

Official results can be found here:-

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/events/details/54292/Stourbridge-Velo-Circuit-Race-2

I'm sure there were photo's being taken and if I find any I'll post a link.

Thank you as per usual to the race organisers and marshalls for an excellent day in the saddle.


13/Jul/2011, 5:51 pm Link to this post Send Email to paulbelfield   Send PM to paulbelfield
 


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