BUCS Road Race, 18 May 2025

BUCS Road Race, held down in Devon, was not short of drama for me. The course was hard - it was 95km with about 1300m elevation in the heat. After previous hydration-related mistakes, I was pretty nervous about dehydration as I only had the two bottles on my bike to get me round. We rolled out just after midday, and then were promptly stopped againfor about half an hour after a nasty crash in the men’s race up the road. Although the delay from the crash didn’t help with the heat and the nerves, it was at least nice to chat to a few of the other girls in the race!

The first 30km or so were fairly chill - I was trying to maintain a fairly decent position and avoid the terrible holes. There was a fairly big climb about 45km in, where a few girls attacked. I just about managed to cling on for a while, where the race got split pretty much in half, but near the top of the climb I unfortunately got distanced from the leading group. I ended up in a small group behind with a few other girls, and we worked together to stay away from those behind us on the road. Unfortunately at this point my Di2 very helpfully decided to die. I got stuck in my little ring - not particularly helpful for trying to pull through in the chaingang we had going. I decided to try and stick with the group nonetheless, and tried to communicate as best as I could with the other girls what was going on - I’d pull up the climbs if they let me sit in on the descents to try and stay on. Other than having to do about 150rpm on every downhill, this actually worked quite well. I ended up sticking with this second group on the road until the finish, rolling over the line in my little ring for 13th.

I was pretty frustrated with my mechanical drama, but proud of a solid get round on a tricky course despite it! Nutrition, hydration, and legs all pulled through, so I can’t be too annoyed with that.

Freya Taylor