The first big story which took place back at the beginning of March was the official team launch, the day when all of us riders got together in our shiny new team kits on a very cold day and stood in a line in a very public place to have our pictures taken. Oh the glamour!! Although it was a bit hit and miss we did look the part and we got what we needed to get done and soon found our selves being mentioned on various cycling websites such as British Cycling and VeloUK, this finally made all the hard work worth while and made it all fell very official. Again a big thanks to the guys at Bio-Racer for doing such a great job with the kit, a massive thanks to VE Heath Clubs for there backing and support and also to our co sponsor, SubZeroBikes for there product support. Lets hope we can do you all proud.
With the first races of the season kicking of in early March, Mike Kiss was the first rider to give RPC there first Road Race Result with a 6th place in the last round of the Ludgershall Winter Series and then taking a fine 5th place in the Blackawton Road Race the very next day! Good Job Mike.
Mike then competed in the Pittards Trophy race down in Somerset on a cold miserable looking day. After putting in a strong showing and making lots of the breakaways Mike came away with another top 10 after finishing 9th and picking up some more points.
March the 18th marked the first team race of the year with 4 of us putting in an appearance at the Evesham Vale Elite Road Race which is a notoriously tough early season opener since it became an E/1/2 race 2 years ago. Myself (me being Dan!) Tony Kiss, Joe Page and Ade Bird all took the start on a very cold morning which had us all shivering and reaching for leg and arm warmers. as expected it was fast and an early break went up the road with almost all of the favourites including 5 riders from Cycle Premier. As expected, Cycle Premier took the win and most of the runner up positions whilst the rest of us set up the sprint for the crumbs that were left behind. After deciding that Tony was the strongest rider of the day, I set up to lead him out for the finish and after taking it up with about 500 to go I committed to powering down the out side of the bunch in order to drop Tony off with about 200 left. This was all going perfectly until it was time for tony to got for the sprint and some joker cut across his line taking his front wheel out along with most of the spokes. Not good but at least he stayed up and we all finished and gained some valuable experience for next year.
The next race on the agenda saw the same 4 of us tackle the first round of the West Midlands Road Race League, the Bill Jinks Memorial which was located not far from Coventry. We were all pretty shocked at how fast the race was for a second cat race and its clear that a lot of teams have picked up the pace coming in to this year. As with all early season road races, nobody wanted to let anything get away which made for a tough race. Ade managed to get in an early move which saw the rest of us patrol the front of the bunch in order to allow them to escape but the bunch were not having any of this as soon dragged it back. I managed to play a good team role and drag back a lot of moves and put in some seriously hard efforts in order to close down some gaps. In the end it pretty much finished in a bunch gallop up the final climb which I was lead out for with tony dragging us in to the final corner and Joe trying to set me up during the initial phase of the climb. This didn't quite go to plan as it all bunched up on the very narrow roads and Joe got squeezed out and so did I. In the end I had to go solo up the side of the pace and take the out side line of the last corner which was basically saw me on the grass and yet still only managed to get me a lonely 22nd place. Not the ideal start we had hoped to our campaign in this league but then its still early days.
Next up was a Crit at the Stourport track which again saw me, Tony, Joe and Ade take the start on another cold and dank day. This was an elite CritRatcliff took a solo win, Tony sprinted to an extremely impressive 9th with Ade coming in 11th. Tony’s result was even more impressive given that he hadn't even rode the course until the first lap of the race.
Back with our more southerly representative, Mike Kiss was raking up more impressive results with a stunning performance in the Bentor 2 Stage race in South Devon. After finishing 9th in the prologue and then 7th in the Road Race which followed, Mike managed 8th on GC which he did with no other team support due to all the rest having other commitments and Joe being out of action. Again, nice one Mike! I then races the Warwickshire RC 28 mile SPOCO TT on the 8th of April winning the Road Bike Classification and managing 20th overall, I really should do a TT on my Aero Bike One day to get a descent overall position!!!!!
Finally, the last up date comes for the weekend just gone where myself, Tony and Ade contested the second round of the West Midls League, the Stan Jones Road Race which was not far from Telford. On the way to this race Tony was expressing to me how he feels he needs to rain himself back in the first few miles and not go with the suicide breaks that go so early. So what did he do, he went after 1 mile in a group of 3!!!! Me and Ade worked the bunch over in order to slow the chase which allowed Tony’s break to gain 2 minutes by the 2nd lap of the 7 the race was help over.
Soon everyone began to get on top of it and began to chase hard. I tried to cover as many moves as possible but was not feeling great so was finishing harder than It should have. Race favourite James Ratcliff jumped from the bunch but was latched on to by our very own Adrian bird. The 2 of them managed to bridge the gap to Tony's trioi which was now a lot bigger and contained about 10 riders. They stayed away to the finish but with tony being in the break all day and Ade making a mammoth effort to bridge up, both there legs failed them in the print but they still claimed great finished with Tony in 7th and Ade coming in one place ahead in 6th. A truly stunning and courageous ride by both which saw them do the team very, very proud. Well Done Boys
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