Race Report -Blackpool Crit

This was the first of a 3 race stint up on the north west coast and required a 5 hour drive in the morning to get up there in time for the early evening start time. And by the time the start rolled around it was no surprise that it was throwing it down. The course was a 2.5km hot dog with a downhill hairpin at one end and an hairpin into a cobbled climb at the other....right up my alley! We were racing on the edge of the beach, in fact if you had binned it bad enough on the back straight you would have ended up lying in the sand.

I punctured pretty early on going up the climb and when i rejoined a pretty decent move had gone, which we had 2 guys in so it was a case of covering everything. Gaywood, who was leading the series, told me to cover Russ Downing which led to some rather interesting facial expressions from me as he tried numerous times to try and get across to the move.

The boys up the road had things under control with Gordy soloing in to win comfortably with Gibby rolling 4th. We kept everything in order back in the dwindling peloton so it was a great result for the team. The only downside was spending all night getting sand and grit of the body, it becomes a problem when you race with contacts like I do as visibility is restricted which makes racing all the more fun.