Bovingdon Bomber 3/4, 7 Jul 2021

Judith Parry

After a good performance at Bovingdon last week, I hoped to continue at this level or above and aim for a podium this week. I got another good start and was in the top 5 riders into the first hairpin. On the second lap I was at the very front of the bunch but this wasn’t the smartest idea as it was very windy so I was exposed to the headwind. After riding at the front for a little longer than I anticipated there was an attack, as expected. I tried to follow the attack but I started having some breathing difficulties. At this point I was focusing on trying to get onto someone’s wheel to get pulled to the attacking group while trying to control my breathing.

Unfortunately I lost the group but I got my breathing under control a little while after. I was part of a chasing group, although there was very little interest in this group in actually chasing the group in front (as several of the members of the group had teammates up ahead). This was frustrating for me - we could have caught the group as they were 30-50 metres in front. I tried twice to attack to see if anyone would go with me to chase the group down but just like the other week, they were only interested in marking me and not chasing the group in front.

The only thing going through my head at this point was that I didn’t want to have another repeat of what happened the other week but looking on a positive side, I was guaranteed to get some points as both groups were relatively small. So I decided my goal for the last 30 minutes of my race was to get 5th, meaning I had to win the sprint out of my group. In my group there were two riders from the same team who also had two teammates in the front group. I saw the two teammates in my group talking to each other so I was observing their moves- I had a feeling they were planning on getting 5th and 6th as their other teammates were guaranteed podiums. The last 25 minutes were pretty boring as I felt like I could have gone quicker, but the wind grew stronger so I just stayed sheltered. With 3 laps to go, I started moving closer to the front of the group. With one lap to go I was 3rd/4th in front and as we got to 200 metres to go I started my sprint early and I just kept going all the way to the line. I ended up finishing first in our group and 5th overall which I was pleased with considering the first 5 minutes didn’t go to plan!

Amy Harvey