Regional Champs and return to Belgium

After a brief 9 day return to England, I am now back in Belgium. The reason for the return of course being the regional road race championships held on Sunday.

In sweltering conditions, 60 of Essex finest lined up at 9 am in Saffron Walden ready to tackle the slightly longer than expected 190km race! With little wind and 30 degree heat, it was always going to a tough one.

With team Orbea fielding by far the largest team, making up 9 of the 60 strong field, it was always going to be an uphill struggle defeating them – the race was theirs to lose. The race proceeded at a pedestrian pace, a highly welcome change to the usual suicide early attacks of kermesse racing. Eventually a few riders, including myself were willing to attack in an early bid to go clear. However the needlessly negative tactics of a dominant team Orbea became immediately apparent – every time an attack went one of their riders would follow it. Almost every time an attack went, it would be pulled back into the peloton after a few minutes.

Having spent a lap or 2 of non-stop attacking with my team mate Dom, each taking it in turns to go as soon as the other was caught, Dom eventually got away with a couple of Orbea riders and were never seen again, whilst I was left in the peloton being chased down every time I attacked. With the break clear, including 5 Orbea riders, it was going always going to be a hard task bridging over to it. Teaming up with Joe Skipper, the winner of last year’s event, with no team mates, we set about trying to force a split in the peloton and forming a small enough group to ensure everyone would work. Forcing the pace at the front, but with no wind to aid us, a few splits occurred but almost always came back together with just the 2 of us seemingly interested in chasing.

The race followed this pattern for what seemed forever, and I rarely ventured from the front of the chase for the duration of the race, and often took the opportunity to attack but never gained enough time to go clear. By the end of the race 8 riders were left in front of the majorly thinned out peloton and taking second in the sprint, I finished in a disappointing 10th, with Dom taking 3rd.

In all honesty the race was very poor and allowing one team to field some 15% of the field with almost every other team with just 1 or 2 riders didn't really allow and meaningful racing to occur. However, Orbea did what they had to do to win, and I cannot take anything away from Andy Lyons - a very deserving winner.

Having travelled back to Belgium early on Wednesday morning, I located a kermesse in Oosterzele for the afternoon. The dark skies and cold rain that greeted me in Belgium was a somewhat unwelcome change to the high temperatures of last week. The 6.4km circuit was mainly flat with a couple of tight corners to negotiate. The race also came with the added bonus of a oil spill across the road leading into the final 90 degree bend before the finish! Despite the fire brigades best efforts to clear the oil, the road was still incredibly slippery and as such the corner was to be neutralised for each of the 18 laps.

After the long journey to Belgium and 261km ride on Sunday, having ridden home after the race, in my legs, I wasn’t feeling too great, and coupled with my seat post slipping on the first lap; I was suffering from the start. Knowing even attempting to attack would be suicide, I treating the race just as training and to knock the effects of the journey out of my legs, I sat back and watch the race form in front of me.

After 2 hours however, my legs started to feel a lot better, and with 23 riders 2 minutes ahead decided to give some attacks and see what happened. With some degree of success -soloing over to a group of 8 being my personal highlight- it came down to a bunch sprint of 30 riders which I was able to win, finishing in 24th position.

My next race is in Hoxem, just 3 kilometres from Kumtich on Sunday, my birthday, so naturally it’s a race I hope to go well in!