Nadine Spearing. Race 2 - Moving in the right direction

Round 2 of the Milton Keynes Starter Circuit once again race saw another big turnout of over 30 women. With my confidence boosted at round 1, where I chased down every attack and paid the price, but felt strong, I was looking forward to round 2. I also had some knowledge from the first round about who the stronger opponents were, which proved to be very useful.

This weeks race was quite different to last weeks. This week there was no through and off and less shouting, but there were lots of near crashes and at times riding in the bunch of 20+ riders was a bit on the scary side. For some reason people kept braking on the gradual descent, for which there was no reason, causing concertinas and some sharp braking maneuvers. When a couple of riders were bought down in a nasty crash it woke the group up a bit.

As with last week, I had a race plan. And this week I stuck to it. I didn't chase down every attack, and as none of them proved to be successful with such a big group chasing them down, this was a good move.

With 10 laps out of the 35 to go the race started to get interesting as the pace picked up. On the final few laps I tried to position myself on a 'good' wheel. I did a good job, finding last week's winner Linda Hubbard's wheel and did my best to hold my nerve and my line as several other riders jostled with me to do the same.

When the riders at the front kicked with half a lap to go, I found myself pushed back and boxed in. The only option if I was to get back into the race was to go wide and ride up the outside. At this point I was in 10th position. I got out of the saddle and started to sprint, around 400m from the line. With my legs burning I moved up to 4th position, but with a long gap up to 3rd. I used every ounce of energy left to carry on pushing hard on the pedals in the final 100m. With the line drawing ever closer, to finally overtook Linda Hubbard and rode into 3rd spot with about a metre to spare. Race winner was the youngster and pre-race favourite Lucy Garner and second place went to 1st Cat rider Jeanette Caldicotte, who was also runner up last week.

Hopefully I can work on some more aspects of my race next week at the third and final round of the series to produce another good result.