Banbury Star Road Race, 22 May 2022

I was looking forward to doing the iconic road race, The Banbury Star, with my teammates for another round of the Womens National Team Cup. What made this race iconic was Edge Hill, a 14% gradient climb that we had to go up 3x times!!

At the start of the neutralised I made sure to be near to the front, ready for the climb. The neutralised ended and it was a fast pace but my legs felt good so far. I was following wheels and moving to the front, and making sure a couple of other teammates were up the front end of the bunch too. We quickly arrived at Edge Hill, about half way on the circuit. As expected the bunch had strung out completely. I started near the front but dropped further back and found myself in a small group of about 6 other riders. There was a larger group in the distance but we were unable to catch up. We did a fast chaingang for the rest of the first lap and going into the second lap. My legs were a bit tired at this point.

We carried on working together and when we approached Edge Hill for the second time, I saw a few of the riders in our group struggling. Luckily I was at the front end of our group. My calves were burning and I was relieved to make it up the climb, knowing I had to do it just one more time. Me and a couple of other riders tried to ride away from those dropped on the climb but they caught up at the bottom of the descent. We continued working together until the last lap. Our last time climbing Edge Hill saw a couple of riders get dropped. I managed to get away with 3 other riders and we stayed away this time.

The last few kms were painful. There were attacks and I did a lot of chasing. There was a final attack 300 metres before the finish, but I didn’t have the legs to stay with the other 3 riders. I ended up crossing the line in 46th place out of 62 riders.

I am happy with my result, given how demanding the course was. I have never raced on such a tough climb before. The race had a strong field, so I came into the race with the mindset of coming here to gain experience rather than focusing on results. Plus, the challenging climb was good practice for National Champs which is the following weekend!

Amy Harvey