on 15th April 2019
Antony only joined the team a few weeks ago as a very important part of our Veteran Team Pursuit Squad. 2weeks ago he won a Circuit race at Hog Hill and this weekend first place in hte LeCol, Arcadian Road Race Series – see below for his race report!
I rode the second round of the LeCol, Arcadian Road race series today on the Candover circuit near Portsmouth and run by the GS Vecchi. I’m a ‘C’ so it was in the ‘C/D’ category as separate race. It was just under 80k on a really tough little circuit that wasn’t designed for riders who weigh 76kg, over the 80k it climbs over 850 metres which seems like a lot to me.
Anyway, there were about 45 guys on the start line, it was freezing, literally about 2 or 3 degrees with a really cold wind too. I never wear long sleeves or legs racing but today I made the exception.
It started off really cagey for the first 4 miles, we hit the first climb, there was a bit of sparring at the front, a guy attacked I went with him, went through did a turn and had 100 metres or so on the bunch at the top on my own, the circuit descends for about half a mile and then climbs for another mile after that to the finish line, by the time I hit the finish line I was thirty seconds up and over a minute at the end of the first lap. I stuck about 40 seconds a lap into the bunch after that and finished 3 minutes 30 seconds up on a break of two guys and 4 minutes on the bunch.
If I’m really honest I blew to pieces in the last five miles as it was just a little too far for me, but luckily for me vets road races are just above crit distance so I weathered the storm.
Branching out, two team members were throwing a run into the mix with their cycle. Tom Payne competing in the standard distance at the Battlefield Duathlon and Craig McKee at the sprint.
Tom Payne managed a 2nd place finish to qualify for the European championships and Craig McKee managed 3rd after securing the fastest bike leg of the day.