Lee Valley Winter Circuit Series R5, 17 November 2018

I arrived for this race feeling confident, having entered the new Masters category. I hadn’t noticed however that this was open to any E1234 riders over 40, so the field was smaller than the 3/4 race but just as fast! A breakaway of 5-6 riders got a bit of a gap at one point, and I used some valuable energy chasing this down. My legs also didn’t feel as good as last week after a hard week of training, and the wind was different with a strong headwind at the top of the short climb, so I gave up all thoughts of attacking, and decided to take my luck in the bunch sprint. I was badly positioned on the front on the last corner, so a few were able to get the jump on me, but my sprint wasn’t too bad, still accelerating across the line at over 35mph. 8th place wasn’t bad considering everything.

Tim Phillips

Photo: Katie Chandler