Over the last month I’ve ridden the National Road Race Champs at Helmsley and the Grand Prix de Dames National Circuit Race in Blackpool.
The National Road Race was held on a hilly route which was always going to make the riding hard. But I was well rested, feeling good and ready for the inevitable break which went on the hill at the start of the 2nd lap of the first circuit. As Nicole Cooke and Emma Pooley surged ahead, Jo Rowsell, Jessica Allen and Rachel Heal managed to get back to their wheels, with myself and Emma Trott following closely behind. Once the front 5 combined and started to work together, Emma and I could only watch them pull away up the long and undulating climb. We were soon joined by a group of 9 riders. Unfortunately Emma broke a spoke a few miles later and had to stop for service. Ahead the group of 5 joined 2 breakaway riders, but one of them dropped back to our chase group, leaving 6 riders up the road. Our group worked well initially but it wasn’t long before the pace dropped, with few riders trying to break away. Helen Wyman made the last attack before the riders settled down for a sprint finish. She also took the sprint for 7th place and I came 8th, the same was last year but in a stronger field on a harder circuit.

I went to the Blackpool GP de Dames as defending champion, and with my big races of the year now over I was happy to try to break up the race a bit rather than to sit in for a sprint finish. This was much harder than I had hoped and I found myself doing more chasing than attacking! There was 2 rider break-away as only a few laps remained and along with a couple of other riders I had to make some big efforts to pull it back. All of a sudden there was one lap to go and it was a sprint finish! It was all a bit hectic and there wasn’t much room to manoeuvre and I should have really made my move sooner but I came 4th in the sprint anyway.

I’ve just got the great news that I managed to get an entry into the 3 peaks cyclo-cross race in September. Given the extensive cramp I’ve had in the past in this event I need to start to do more walking up steep hills, so this will be a priority from now until then. It’s such a great event and I’m looking forward to getting out and doing as much off-road riding as possible. I still have some road racing planned but I probably won’t race now until August.