NCRA Handicap Road Race Rd 3, 19 Mar 2022

This was my second attempt at a road race and finally a race where I got there early enough to have a normal warmup and not have to stress out! After a not so good result last week in the wind and being put in a very strong group I was moved down to group 2 (from group 3 last week). Our group had about 14 guys in it and we left the start 4 minutes after group 1.

We got organised off the mark, forming two lines and rotating smoothly. The wind was coming from the east therefore the bottom 3rd of the circuit was all head wind, the right side was a head/cross wind from the right and then the left side was a tail/cross from the left. After a fairly pacey first lap I was already starting to get tired legs and going out of the first junction in Lap 2 there was an attack which I ended up having to do a big effort to close as the group split in two. In fact the rest of the group caught back up a minute later to my disappointment. I then ended up hanging on for dear life just trying to stay in contact to the group, I skipped 3 or 4 turns in order to try and recover.

Going into the tailwind section we caught the 1st group, ramping up the pace to pass them. A few managed to jump on including the eventual winner of the race. The pace stayed high but I was able to return to taking turns as my legs started feeling better again. Going into the 3rd lap we were still working well as a unit and a few spikes in pace ended up dropping a few riders, with the front group now consisting of around 20.

As we turned onto the final road for the last few miles I moved up to slot in at the front of the group as I wanted to be away from any crashes and also to be in a good position for the sprint. I was in about 3rd wheel and two guys attacked on the downhill, I started sprinting to latch onto the wheel and was able to hold on just about, spinning out my junior gears to the absolute max. The attacker realised we were with him and knocked off the pace as we got onto the flat before the uphill finish. At that moment another guy attacked and all of a sudden I was being swamped, a few riders passed in front of me and a couple on my right so I was blocked in. I wasn’t able to sprint to the limit immediately, but thankfully a gap opened up and I gave it whatever I had left, regaining a couple of positions and finishing 9th overall and 2nd junior. Due to how well our group worked and a pretty substantial time gap we were able to hold off the groups behind. I was very happy with this performance as I have put in a lot of training over winter and was glad I could finally get a good result.

Chris King