Sunday 30^th March- 2^nd Round of the Women’s Team Series race, Twickenham CC Dave Peck Memorial race

In preparation for today’s race I did a quick recce of the course the day before. I was definitely feeling quietly confident after the checking it out as the course was mainly flat with 2 drag hills, a circuit which would seem to suit me rather well.  

On the day of the race, the weather was really great and sunny and I was looking forward to my first race on the open roads! The first couple of the miles were neutralised to the circuit, everyone was jostling for position in the group and I managed to stay towards the front. All in all I had a really great race as I was able to ride comfortably within the top 15 out of 80 rides for the majority of the race. I was really rather strong and even at one point made a lone jump to a leading group of 6. Unfortunately, our leading group was shortly pulled back into the main bunch. However, I stayed active at the head of the peloton, working at one point with about 10 other riders in chain gang in hope to split up the main group. I kept on top of my eating and drinking throughout the race. 50 miles into the race I was still energised. I was very happy as this was the longest race done.

However, the race was being ridden very dangerously by a few riders, who were constantly riding on the other side of the road to move up in the group; there were a few close calls when cars came past! Due to this dangerous riding, the commissaire decided to halt the race ; unfortunately too abruptly as when the leading motorbike stopped suddenly at the front of the group, no one at the back knew what was happening and so inevitably a couple of riders crashed. Annoyingly, as we stopped for about 10-15 minutes all the riders who had dropped off the group or had been lapped were allowed to start the race again in the peloton, which was definitely unfair. Within 2 laps of resuming the race, 50 miles in, there was a major crash which happened in the middle third of the group;I was really gutted because I came down heavily in it. I took a nasty hit to my stomach by some handlebars and in general very sore with a nasty road rash on my back. I’m glad as eventually I got back on my battered bike and managed to finish the race. I hope everyone else in the crash recovers quickly.