3rd of July 2021
Today the team went to Colchester for the Regional Road Race Championship. My main focus, and we spent a lot of time trying to find solutions… wasn’t today, it is tomorrow, where I have an almost impossible National Youth Series Race up Oliver’s Mount in Scarborough. That meant I needed to use as smaller amount of energy as possible today, but still try to win the regional Championship.
The start had a tail wind, so we made sure I was positioned at exactly the right place on the grid. That worked and the tail wind straight was taken in a controlled way. As soon as we turned out of the tail wind into the cross wind, I did the next part of the plan. I can’t explain what had to happen, but it almost worked, except Eloise my main competitor, knew, I think, what was going to happen. That meant I had to change to the next option for the first lap. I did that successfully and by the end of the first lap I looked at my my pit board I was using to help me not push too hard showed I was over 16 seconds up. I then rode slowly for the next few laps, but my pit board was showing I was gaining a lot of time each lap.
Dad was waving at me to slow down to not catch and lap the 2nd place group, as that wouldn’t be great for them. I could see the group and they could see me on the long straights. They didn’t seem to realise about getting lapped. It got to the point where I was told to stop the race by catching the leaders, as it was going to go on for too many laps. I did one faster lap and caught, passed and lapped the 2nd place rider. When I passed them I was only doing 21mph, whereas they were doing 11mph, so there was no way I could avoid passing them. The second-place group are supposed to drop back as they are lapped, but instead they chased me. I think British Cycling tried to stop that happening, but the riders didn’t really interfere with my race too much, so it wasn’t a big problem. At the line they sprinted, I was saving energy and didn’t sprint, but I one boy did come over the line alongside me, but they had been lapped, so it didn’t matter. Eloise did a great job at the finish and took third place. My teammate took 6th overall. I was only racing Eloise, and the other girls, so although I rode alone more than expected, it was still a win and I am regional champion. Very happy, especially as my brother is also Regional U8 champion and Frank Spauls in U10s too.. The whole team rode amazingly. Well done SYRT.
