Cadence-Round one of the National Series

Sunday 2nd April marked the first race in the Junior British National Road Series, which would consist of seven laps of exactly 15km and then a final 10km up to the top of the final climb, and the entire race would be 115km in total. The weather on the day couldn't have been much better with sun the whole day and hardly a cloud in sight. This race was quite different the UCI races I've been to as it seemed less busy in the lead up to the actual race, with this one we arrived at just after nine O'clock, got signed on, changed and then straight on to the rollers in time for a 10:20 rider's briefing and then leaving at 12:30. We rolled out from the HQ which was Gwernyfed Leisure Centre, in Three Cocks, Brecon and had a neutralised section of 4km before the neutralising car drove off, leaving the race having officially started. The Backstedt Hotchillee team for the race was myself, Dan Coombe, Matt Burke and Charley Calvert, which was a strong team, but unfortunately Dan had been ill for the week leading up to the race which was really frustrating as he could've done really well had that not been the case.

The first two laps of the race were quite tame with the only real effort being put in up the climb each lap, which lasted about a two minute climb and each time we went up it, everyone's legs started hurting that little bit more, adding that bit more lactic acid to them every time, and that was the killer of this circuit. A few early breaks tried their luck but to no avail, with the peloton bringing them back each time, and then one time I saw an opportunity to try my luck off the front and Charley saw me going and came with me, and we were off the front for probably around five minutes before unfortunately being brought back by the group and then straight away pulling turns in another breakaway that had caught us, but that didn't work either with the main group catching us again.

Soon after this I was in the middle of the group and one of the NEG Moto riders (who ride motorbikes up the outside of the group in order to stop the oncoming traffic in order for it to be safe for us to race) was riding up the right hand side of the peloton, when a rider crossed over the middle white lines just as the moto rider was coming behind them. At this point the moto rider obviously slammed on his brakes, but was on a muddy patch of road and so his bike wiped out from underneath him, and he came off his bike hard, with the bike bouncing off the road and into the bush on the right hand side of the road, before bouncing straight back out and straight into the riders directly behind me, taking out maybe seven riders. This was one of the scariest things that's ever happened during a race I've been in, and if I was any further back in the group then it could have been me taken off so I count myself extremely lucky to have been ok after that.

It was just before all this commotion that the decisive breakaway had been formed, with Tom Pidcock (eventual winner) and Oscar Mingay (eventual second place) and a few others in, and at the point where they had the largest gap, the split from them to the rest of the field was around a minute or so, and it was at this point we realised if we wanted to bring them back at all then the whole Backstedt team would need to go to the front and start pulling some big turns along with the others helping to bring back the break, which annoyingly wasn't many at all, with only about eight or so of us actually putting in turns on the front, but nonetheless we still brought down the gap over the next two laps to around five seconds and picked up every rider except for Tom and Oscar when everyone decided to sit up and stop the chase, letting them extend their lead again.

Soon after this I realised no one else was willing to work together to I kept putting in attacks trying to break away from the group as I knew that was the only way I was going to get a good result as I wasn't going to be able to win up the final climb. Unfortunately due the negative racing, each one of my attacks kept being brought back. At this point we all knew it would come down to a sprint up the hill for third place, so the peloton lead it in to the final roundabout and I was in quite a good place, about top ten in the group and then we hit the hill for the final time and because of all the efforts I had put in during the race I had no legs up the climb, so I could only manage a 16th in the sprint, so an 18th overall on the day which was a disappointing result after the effort I'd put into the race, but as a team we worked really well together which was great. Unfortunately Dan coudn't finish the race as he was too ill, Matt crashed in the final run up to the hill, and Charley managed a 10th which was really good. Hopefully next week will go better in the Tour of the Mendips.