Newport Shropshire Road Race

 

West Midlands Road Race League 9

Shropshire

6o miles

5 laps of an undulating course with one main climb

Sunny conditions

 

Beep, beep, beep, beep. 6.15am. Alarm goes off and i wake up to the feeling of a clogged chest and a sore throat, yes folks, i have a little bit of  a cold which has gradually crept on over the last few days. I was hoping it would miraculously disappear before todays race but its hasn't and under normal circumstances i wouldn't dream of racing but as todays race is part of the WMRRL i need to be in it to keep my chances of overall series victory alive. Mike Johnson is also racing today when he shouldn't be as he is still recovering from is horrific crash only 2 weeks ago, i tried to convince him  not too but he is way to egger! We struck a deal in the end that if i take him he has to get through both his bottles by the end of the race and if he feels slightly odd then he must pull out. They were my terms and conditions and he agreed. Sat Nav set we hit the road and on to the motorway which is only the second time i have driven on it so that woke me up for sure.

Arriving at the race in one piece i began to get the strangest feeling of day ja vu. I didn't recognise the name of the course but when we got to the HQ i realised that i had ridden the course before a year or 2 ago. It hosted the Regional Champs in 2009 where i was racing the 3/4 cat race, i remember it well as i had a great race by getting in to a 2 man break which was out all day before we got caught in the run to the finish but i still managed 8th. Now i knew what was in store i was more relaxed but my body was noticeably tired from the cold so i was unsure how i would go.

The race rolled out and started fast, it took my legs an age to get going, even longer that usual. once they did though i made my usual mistake of getting jumpy and excited too early and kept trying to chase down or bridge up to all of the stupid little moves that would never amount to anything. What i should have been doing was marking the 2 riders who were closest to me on point and waiting for there moves but nope, that's just me. When the favourites did attack i was struggling to go with them, both because of my cold and lifeless legs and also because i was tiring already. At one point, Mike Jones, who is the rider i couldn't let get away, managed to get in to a break with the other rider i should have been marking. This was not good and i ended up flogging myself to death to bring it back which i managed thankfully but boy, did it take a lot out of me.

One big problem in the race was that me and Mike Jones were very heavily Marked. everyone knows that mike is the strongest and now everyone' knows my racing style and that I'm a contender, they just would not let us go. When mike attacked i had no choice but to respond as well because A) i could not let him get away and 2) i knew that if me and him could get away together then would be able to stay away. However, this was proving frustrating for both of us and if neither one of us attacked then nobody would do anything but sit there and wait for us to do something.

At the half way point the race had split to pieces and there were maybe 30 or so riders in the leading group. A break of 6 did get away after me and Mike had initiated a flurry of attacks which had been chassed down and the counter was just allowed to go. By this point i was feeling rough, tired and annoyed. I was not strong where i should have been which was on the climb and i was unsure what i could do. On the last lap with the break about 40 seconds up the road. Mike decided to try one last move on the main climb where he was followed by Adrian Bird in an attempt to bridge to 3 riders who were just slightly up the road. I saw that no one else had jumped as we were all suffering but i knew it was now or never. I dug deep and accelerated away and up to Mike and the others. It was so painful it was crazy, when i got there Mike was struggling also and then Adrian just accelerated away on his own. He looked mega strong.

The 5 of us that were left just stuck at the same pace and worked together, we only had a few miles to go so we rode hard, really hard. Adrian was 20 seconds up the road and the original break was about 15 further ahead. The winner came from the front break who happened to be Mike Jones’s Team Mate and Adrian didn't quite catch them but came home in a well deserved 6th. The 5 of us were in the home stretch and beginning to mess around which was a bad idea as we had a hard charging peloton in sight of us. Nobody wanted to take it up as they too concerned about sprinting for 7th so i decided to drag them to the finish. I decided that i would rather come last in our group than be caught by the bunch and come nowhere. I opened up the sprint at the bottom of the hill with my legs already screaming, 2 riders slung round me and mike managed to just pip me to the line but it was pretty close, the final rider rolled in just behind me. A few seconds later the bunch gallop crossed the line which just shows that my decision was a good one.

On reflection the race was very hard for me as i was nowhere near my strongest yet i still managed to pull something out of the hat and against all the odds did manage to get away with mike in the end to secure some more points to the overall. Plus, by coming in only 1 place behind Mike, The gap from me to him remains small. With 3 rounds to go it anybody’s game.

Mike Johnson did the best thing that he could ever have done in todays race which was pull out after 2 laps. He had kept his promise and said that his kidneys were giving him grief so he called it a day. I am really proud of him for being man enough to do that as we all know how hard it is to make the sensible choice. Chapeau.