Adam Grabs that 2nd Place
Adam Brittain and James Walker made the journey to Redbridge Cycling Centre on Saturday 29 to race in the East London Velo Winter Series making a big impact and moving HWCC up to SECOND in the Central England rankings. This course provides one key difference to Hillingdon circuit; a 300m up hill sprint to the finish line. The cat 3 race started with 30 riders but with the pace being driven up by last weeks cat 4 winner Ryan Henry (no club) 50% of the field was dropped out by half way.
Almost every lap Henry tried to break on the climb but every lap the pack kept things tight and let him go no further than 10meters. Because the course is quite large (circa 3k) my opportunity to see the attacks, breaks, hustles, and bustles with fairly limited……however in the remaining 5 laps the pace was clearly being taken up with both Walker and Brittain sitting in tight and covering any moves. The penultimate lap went up the final climb at 27mph and by this point it looked like a group of 10 would get away including Brittain. They had about 6 seconds…….Somehow Walker managed to jump across and hang onto the back of the pack whilst taking two others with him, by now the pack was reduced significantly from its starting numbers.
As the pack approached the finish Henry put in a big kick and launched himself off the front of the group, Brittain followed and was pushing hard up to the line with 2 other riders in hot pursuit but he made it over in second place by half a bike length. At the back of the pack Walker was pushing hard and came in at the back of the pack after a steely effort for 13 place. Walker did well to get up the final climb 18 times within the main pack with his big frame in comparison to most the other riders! The final climbs sprint speed was 24mph…loosing some pace from the previous lap. Brittain did well in his first cat 3 cat race, gaining some valuable National B points to his license.
To make this week complete HWCC Joe Clarke and James Walker rode Hillingdon RR this weekend with Clake picking up a valuable 3rd Place and Walker bagging a 9th Place taking all the HWCC riders into 3rd Category …..lets keep the pressure up on the BC Rankings!
Race Report by Karla Boddy
Paul Morrissey HWCC Press sec
