The first round of the women’s team cup marked by first “proper” race of the road season. This race was on some of my training roads so I knew how flat the course was and I had good knowledge on the course. There was a strong line up of 60 riders and the race was 100km long, so I knew it was going to be a challenging race. I therefore decided to go into this race with an open mind and see how the race unfolds.

After a good warm up and a long neutralised, the race begun with a few attacks and a quick pace. I felt good and my positioning was good, I was sitting in the top half of the bunch in case the group splits on the drag through the finish and feed zone. My race was going well, with my legs feeling good and my positioning was good too, until my race was pretty much over on lap 4.

As I positioned myself in the top 15, a rider attacked on the wrong side of the road and clipped wheels with another rider as they moved back to the correct side of the road, as a result around 10 riders came down. I just about managed to avoid coming down in the crash, but the race was abruptly stopped. After waiting around for the all clear, the race resumed with a short neutralised (roughly 100 metres long). As soon as the chequered flag came down, the race immediately begun with an attack. My leg’s unfortunately did not respond well as they went stiff from waiting around for the race to restart. I rode as hard as I could, trying to stay in the group but unfortunately I couldn’t stay with the group.

I was joined by another lone rider and we worked well to catch up with another 2 riders down the road, to form a small group of 4. We were working well as a group, keeping a well controlled and steady pace. It wasn’t long until a rider from Team Jadan caught up with our group and she quickly left our group to try and catch any riders down the road. I decided to follow this rider and one other rider also joined , forming a trio. The pace was set very quick, roughly around 30mph on the flat part of the course. I was hanging on for as long as I could, and after about half a lap I did not have the legs or lungs to continue.

I quickly found myself in no man’s land, which definitely made it difficult with the wind picking up and staying motivated to continue the last 4 laps difficult. Despite being alone, I managed to continue doing my solo effort to at least try and stay within the time cut to complete the race. With one lap to go I was then pulled out from the race, admittedly a little relieved, as it the wind continued to get syringes and I had no other riders near me to work with.

Although I was pulled with a lap to go, I can say I’m pleased with my result of finishing 38th (after a slight mix up in results and with other riders pulling out for various reasons). This race provided an indication of how my legs coped with my first ‘big’ race since September last year.

Amy Harvey

Women's Team Cup Race, Hanningfield, 27 Apr 2025

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