Road Cycling Team - Regional Champs

Our crack team of road cyclists was out in full force - James Fox, Paul Londors, Pete Smith, Richard Wood and Mike Wragg. 

The venue was Cublington and the weather perfect … you’re a tiger, bring it on!

The boys have been putting maximum effort into racing as a team, and this race was a perfect example of a selfless team ride from each of them.

Inevitably from the gun the attacks started, with Mike, Paul & Rich taking turns to roll through on the wheels with minimum effort to make sure there was at least one boy in each move.  The race reached the Cublington climb the first time, and Mike and Rich forced the pace in an attempt to encourage attacks over the top.

On the drag out of the Wing turn the race split and a group of 15 moved clear, including Mike.  With this is mind, James, Pete and Paul settled into watching the counter attacks and looking for a free ride up to the front.

Everything looked rosy, and Mike settled in to an unobtrusive ride saving his effort.  However, with 4 PCA riders present the fifteen were clearly on borrowed time, and the attacks came with 40k to go.  However the pink punters’ tactics got the better of them, with the back half of the broken break quickly being hoovered up by a bunch which was certainly not going to let PCA have it all their way.

Now with no-one in the front group, Paul and Rich gave their all to the chase, bringing the race together again.  James appeared to be feeling the least smashed at that point, and sheltered by Mike the boys tried in vain to engineer another break.  Rolling into the last 5k Paul was mindful that his strength lay on the flat, and went with attack after attack hoping to arrive at the final hill with a gap … but wasn’t lucky.

Now truly spent, the boys scrambled up the final climb as fast as cramp would let them, for solid mid pack placings all round.  Such is bike racing, where such a great performance by the team left them with nothing to show for it but aching legs for a few days!