Wally Gimber Road Race (15 March)

The Wally Gimber is traditionally a hard race and to win it you either need to be strong & fast, crafty or damn lucky. Unfortunately for me I was strong, however a required ingredient (speed) was missing. Until now my training has largely been of a strength/endurance nature so my speed is desperately lacking.

[photo courtesy of Belinda Sinclair]

At least we had cracking weather - 16 degrees and sunny at the start, but while we waited in the glorious sunshine we were missing a requirement to hold a race - an ambulance. It was running late. It gave us a chance to catch up with other riders and for me to check out Matt's new Felt top-of-the-range machine. What a beauty.

With the event being run by the SERRL we were privy to be able to use the transponders for timing and wear light paper-like numbers (seriously techie).

Anyway, we set off to complete six laps of a tough circuit which included one slight hill which fortunately wasn't too long. The start/finish line was on a slight descent wide enough for a safe sprint (yeah right).

On the first lap Alex Higham (WyndyMilla) and two guys attacked off the front so I chased and got on. We drove hard for the rest of lap one. I was feeling pretty strong and so was Alex it seemed. So while Alex drove hard on the climbs I put in hard turns on the flats to open a decent gap on the group. We seemed to be managing just fine and opened up a little lead - around 1min, so things were looking good. Eventually, however, Simon and a Dulwich Paragon guy got dropped and by this time a small chasing group had developed. The group had some strong riders in it including Grant Bayton (Sportsbeans/Wilier), Chris McNamara (Team Corley), Toby Neave (Southdown Velo), John Heaton-Armstrong (Fit-For), Steve Saunders (Kingston Wheelers).

Alex and I drove on well together with a neat and tight two-up TT formation. We set a good pace and relentlessly drove on. The gap hovered around 50sec until finally the chasers caught us.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what my team mates were doing or what was going on in the peleton. Turns out that Rob Hurd (DHC Colnago) and Tom Hemnant (London Dynamo) started a move to bridge the gap. They did so quite effectively and before we knew it they'd arrived with Rob looking as fresh as ever. How does he do it? Must be all those years of racing.

With two laps to go the lead group with me in it mucked around with no real cohesive efforts. It seemed that only a few riders were prepared to work which became increasingly frustrating for me. Afterwards I'd wished Alex and I had stayed away. After all we deserved it. The least the group could do is work together, but no - just good old English style - follow wheels "I'm not working" mentality. Argh!!!

So while all the negative riding ensued Rob Hurd said his goodbyes and rode off never to be caught again. He's a bloody crafty bugger. (BTW, he claimed the most stylish rider award which I think he deserved.)

[photo courtesy of Belinda Sinclair]

In the closing lap, while Rob Hurd was away and the main field closing rather swifty, we began the sprint for home. I was a little unprepared so never got going with it until it was too late. I came home in a rather disappointing tenth place... Just in the money (£15) and energy food/drink sponsored by Bike Food.

Final result:

1. Robert Hurd
2. David Creeggan
3. John Heaton-Armstrong
4. Mark Daly
5. Richard Mason
6. Henry Furniss
7. Grant Bayton
8. Roger Smith
9. Chris McNamara
10. Robert Enslin (AW Cycles.Co.uk)
18. Tom Smith (AW Cycles.Co.uk)
40. Alex Peterson (AW Cycles.Co.uk)
47. Matt Melville (AW Cycles.Co.uk)

Full race report on the British Cycling website.
Check out Steve Sauders' race report.

Race Stats:

Time: 03:08
Distance: 127km
Heart Rate: 173bpm average and 193bpm
Ascending: 970m

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