Grain of Sand

Yesterday was the National Junior Road Race championships, one of my main goals for this second half of the season and probably a lot of other riders'. The race was being run by Doug Collins, famous Twickenham CC member and ex-pro rider, and he had chosen a brutally hard course that would certainly split the field of 86 starters to smithereens! I did a recce of the course last weekend in the rain and was in 39-26 on some sections. I was looking forward to it though as I am pretty good on the climbs and my stamina is good. It was also my Dad's birthday so I was extra motivated to do a good ride so as not to waste the day.  The race started with me skipping my chain on the first climb. I had to hop off and put it back on but was soon back in the bunch after a kilometre or so. My plan for the first part of the race was to sit back and conserve my energy. A break got away with a few dangerous riders, Erick Rowsell and Tim Kennaugh, but no one else so I knew they would be easy to ca...

Last Weekend (July 25th-27th), I was part of a GB team that went to race in the Junior UCI ranked Niedersachsen Rundfahrt, not far from my last race in Munsterland. The trip was quite long so we stayed over in Duisberg for the night and made the rest of the trip in the morning. The first stage started on the Friday night and was only 66K however the course was quite challenging with lots of technical areas and narrow lanes. It was almost inevitable that a break would go away and our job was to get 2 GB riders in it. After a nervous start in the town of Wallenhorst (the whole race was run from this town), the race commenced. GB were good at tagging the moves with all the team following wheels. Luke Rowe got in the break of the day which Mark Chrsitian then jumped across to. A few teams missed out including the Norwegians. There coach wasn't too happy as we could hear him screaming each time we passed the start line. Luke was 3rd in the sprint and Mark 4th. I came in around the middl...