SERRL Horsmonden E/1/2/3 - 19th June

Fancied having a crack at an Elite road race to give my legs a test against some strong riders.

Strange course for this race, quite a large circuit with a rolling section, with 3 small climbs, and a long flat and windy section, with the finish line just outside of Marden.

First lap of the race went according to plan, staying within the first 10 riders on the road, however decided to pop a gel coming towards the rolling part and ended up towards the back of the field. As we came to the top of Horsmonden, a car managed to get itself in the middle of the peleton and unfortunately i had ended up in the rear group. Luckily there were a few strong riders in my group who had also been caught out, including my old team mate Adam Cotterell, who spent last year living and racing in Belgium. There were about 12-15 of us I think that decided we were going to chase hard and after a relentless lap of through and off, we got back on. The pace then eased up a bit as the first group had also been going hard trying to stay away from us. One lap later, the winning break managed to get away containing the likes of Chris Macnamara and Ian Field, so it was pretty obvious that the bunch was not going to be able to bring them back as nobody would do the work. This lead to a pretty relaxed 2 laps where we could all have a bit of a breather, even had a bit of a chat with a few riders. A couple more riders managed to get themselves into no-mans land before the finish and i was tempted to have a go, but unsure if i was at the level to be able to stay away yet so decided against it as i wanted to actually finish the race. The last lap was a bit quicker with some attacks, but i managed to stay in the bunch, which was now probably no more than 20 riders.

Coming to the bunch sprint, i was in a decent position in the outside of the road, but in the final turn, it appeared a car had ignored a marshall and tried to take the corner, but was now stranded in the middle of the road. I really lost out here and had no chance of scoring any points. Had to sprint hard out of the corner just to get back up to the main group of riders, with others just giving up straight away. As there were 14 dotted about up the road, the sprint was for 15th and I rolled over in 27th.

http://www.davehaywardphotos.com/SERRL/SERRL-2011/Cycling-SERRL-Hor...

^Link to Dave Hayward's photo of the bunch sprint. You can pick me out just above the right side of the Sigma Sport rider.

Overall though i was pleased with how the race went, and glad to get a finish in hard race. Will be back at this circuit in 2 weeks time for a 2/3/4 category road race. Looking forward to it.