Printer-friendly version

Good afternoon,

I thought I'd share some splendid news on here with my MDCC friends. Today I took part in the Thorney Island circuit race at, er, Thorney Island. It's a working MOD base between Portsmouth and Chichester right on the coast.

The savage wind you can see right now rustling through the trees in tranquil Berkshire was even more fierce down on the coast. There were three of us Thames Velo'ers in the 3rd cat. race and from the off, I got into a group of four looking to take advantage of the brutal crosswind on the start/finish stretch. Our move didn't last long and the peleton swallowed us up less than two miles later.

Then on the uphill run to the line on the first lap of ten, a Southdown Velo chap went on the attack and still near the front, I decided to follow and then came through to do a monster turn.

We quickly opened a gap and thanks to both of us having team-mates in the peleton, they were able to disrupt the chase whilst we went on our merry, 2Up way. At its greatest, our gap reached a minute and then nudged down a bit in the closing stages. I heard afterwards that the bunch of 30-odd riders split to bits in those closing stages. The Southdown chap and I were grateful to hear the bell to signal the final lap and at that stage, it was obvious that barring any mechanical woe, the top two places would be ours.

In the final, 200m uphill run to the line, I managed to turn on the gas to put daylight between the two of us and I crossed the line to applause from the scattering of spectators and my first ever race win. Woowoowoo!

I only took one hand off the bars as the fierce crosswind would've certainly blown me into the grass verge. :o)