OnForm at Peterborough 1-Day 2-Stage
Coming back up to form after a frustrating cold and with this being my first British Road Race, with the exception of Nationals, meant I was uncertain of my form going into today's race.
The proceedings got going with a 6 mile Team Time Trial. With two OnForm teams we were hoping for a good result from either and so to come away with my team 3rd and the others in 2nd was a great result, though meant we were going to be marked going into the road race.
The road race followed the same course as the Time Trial Circuit with the distinguishing feature being a kilometer long climb which we'd have to ascend 11 times.
As the race kicked off my legs felt good and I decided to stretch them out a little joining in with the early attacks to add to the fun. Nothing really stuck until a rider from Flamme Rouge went up the road solo where he managed to stay for the next 10 miles. When he was reeled in he was promptly replaced out front by one of his team mates and then the race started to get interesting.
With 30 miles to go a few chasing breaks started to form with one of my teammates involved, however there were a dangerous number of other riders involved so I decided to try and bridge to the groups forming. In doing so I managed break off a chunk of riders and we eventually formed a break of 15 which was then joined by 5 more. At one point there were five OnForm riders in the group, which was useful as we were able to get the bunch working through and off and opened up a gap on the rest of the field.
Up till now the hill hadn't really played much of a role in the race, but as fatigue set in to some of the other riders legs they began to refuse to work which left me and around 5 others doing the majority of the donkey work on the front. This didn't sit that well with us and so on the penultimate time up he climb, as we got the bell, an attack of four went which involved myself, teammate Ollie Jones. Also with us was a rider from Wellingborough RT, the team who won the TTT and so we needed to gap him on the climb to win.
The group worked well as a quartet and quickly the bunch we were with disappeared from behind us. As we rounded the final bend Ollie sat on the front and began to smash it up the climb, to my relief this spat the rider from Wellingborough.
I was waiting behind the rider on Ollie's wheel to open his sprint. He started to let a gap open, which I presumed was him rushing the gap, it was only when I realised that gap was 4 bike lengths that he'd been spat by Ollie's tempo. I kicked round him and tried to close the gap but Ollie had just steamed up the road. I came away with second on the stage the only question was whether I'd gapped the Wellingborough by the 15 seconds I needed to get 2nd overall on GC. Much to my relief I had.
The day was dominated by OnForm as Ollie and I took the top two spots on the podium for the overall, with Josh taking 5th as well and the OnForm team I was with taking the overall team prize.
Very happy with how my form is heading now, looking forward to riding the Rutland CiCle classic in a fortnight now. Big thanks to the support from TrainSharp and also to Phil with Amersham Sports Massage for keeping me in top shape this season, both have been invaluable assets.