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Report
By 9pm on Friday six of us were gathered outside our tents in a farmer’s field just outside Wareham: David Barnes and David Bamford, Murdo Jamieson, Darren Cainey, Mark Hopkins and me. We set off into Wareham and ate pasta.
This race comprised a 123km road stage demanding seven 125m ascents of a long hill on the Sunday, set off by flatter stages on the Saturday and the Monday.
Before all this, though, was the crucial prologue: a hillclimb up Whiteways Hill ascending 165m with the last 110m in the last 2kms of the 7 or 8 km course. The course record was about 13 minutes and 10 secs and any time under 14 minutes was reckoned to be competitive.
This race is distinctive for offering time bonuses of 5/3/1 seconds on almost every lap, as well as bonuses of 15/10/5 seconds for the stage result. While it does take on something of the character of a points race on the track, this design rewards aggressive attacking riding and on balance it contributes to the quality of the racing.
David Barnes’ time on the prologue of 14.17 was enough to place him 12th equal, but the yellow jersey had managed 13.22. This race was going to be tough. How to set about the afternoon stage?
The answer was clear pretty soon. By the end of the second lap David had escaped with five others and they had started to pull out a solid lead. After a couple more laps the break was reduced to four including the Exeter rider who would finish 2nd overall and a Swindon RC rider, teammate of the principal dangerman Crispin Doyle. However, while David had managed to pick up 13 bonus seconds on the primes the break was being reeled back in, and any hopes of a real time gap at the finish seemed to be evaporating.
Then the champagne moment, the move in which the race was won. The bunch had brought the break back to within 30 seconds, perhaps 20, and Crispin Doyle attacked and jumped across with just one rider in his wheels. Thus reinforced (and how!) the break again began to stretch its lead, and when Crispin took the last lap prime with ease he offered up a promise for the stage result that he redeemed in style by taking the win with a minute on the bunch and 20 secs on David in 3rd place, before the time bonuses. By the end of the day Crispin had a lead of 1.06 on the Exeter rider with David lying 3rd a further 6 seconds back. 3 seconds behind him was the winner of the hillclimb, and next up was the hilly stage. . .
The surprise on Sunday was that the race did not break up. Crispin reinforced his dominance by taking some of the hill top primes but the block headwind up the hill and the tailwind on the descent made escape impossible. Prevailing westerlies rather than a benign southerly would have produced a decisive crosswind up the climb, but not this year.
And so to Monday, after David had slipped back a place to 4th on GC. Just how could Crispin be dislodged? Or should we concentrate on protecting 4th position and try perhaps to move up a place or two?
We had to get an early break away and make Crispin chase, and burn out his teammates in the chasing too. Only then would David have the chance to break him and ride away and put into him the time we needed.
Straightaway Murdo animated the early attack, exactly as we’d planned, but it was in the second lap that the key attack gained ground as four riders separated themselves, including key riders at the top of the GC. Their lead stretched out to a minute or so and Crispin had missed it, shown he could be beaten perhaps, but so too had David and his position on GC was under threat as well. For a lap the three Swindon riders were working hard to chase down the break, and the decisive moment had arrived.
If we helped the Swindon riders we could neutralise the attack and keep David up in 4th. Better racing was to play it long and leave Swindon chasing and chasing burning themselves out, and to leave the GC rivals up the road working and working too. If timed just right, we could reinforce the chase in time to catch the break and then launch David for the win as the freshest rider left. Leave it too late and the break would not be caught; join the chase too soon and the GC rivals would not be weak enough to be rolled over by the attack from David.
The team joined the chase and the break was recaptured, but serious damage had been done. Murdo attacked and was recaptured, and then David had a go and was brought back. Murdo went again and this time with such determination that he managed to shake himself clear of the bunch to ride away with just one companion. By the end of the lap he’d ridden clear of him as well and so held on to win the final stage with just 3 seconds on the bunch. We were not to win the race this year, but seeing Murdo charging up the final slopes to claim victory in the stage was very surely the next best thing. What a way to earn your upgrade to 2nd Cat.
As well as finishing 4th on GC, David Barnes had claimed 3rd place on the first road stage and carried the red Points jersey on day two and three before returning it to the yellow jersey holder in the final podium. A more than worthy ride from our team leader, and another milestone in his development. Congratulations from all of us.
The rider first whose name is missing in this account is that of Darren Cainey: he rode a storming race as domestique and clearly demonstrated the strength required to shape events. For Dave Bamford, even before being separated from the bunch behind a crash in the final stage, this race came just too late to catch his peak of form, or perhaps too early, and we will have to look and see to what new heights it brings him. I was simply out of my league (again) and abandoned once I saw that this was so, rather than draw out a squalid pretence. However, the performance that was perhaps even more distinguished than those already discussed was that of Mark Hopkins. In three days he has completed his first time trial, his first road race and his first stage race. What a baptism – Mark’s a racer now.
So much for the racing, but this was a camping holiday too. On Saturday night we settled on curry, and everyone vowed to restrict themselves to just the one beer. Best drink water till the food arrived, and for the second night we had to bear the disappointment and mystification of the restaurateur watching six men out on the town but applying themselves to jugs and jugs of water. In fact we did not drink at all in the end, but we knew it was still playing on Darren’s mind at least when he pronounced on the fashion crime of tennis socks that come up above a rider’s alcohols . . .
It was a pleasure too to see other riders who we knew, Patrick Hawkins (ShavedLegs), Phil Murrell (Finsbury Park), Des Gayler(Kenton), as well as Phil “Blackpool” Hersey (Eagle), and Mike Smith (Interbike) who both gained their 1st Cat licences for their results in the GC.
We must thank Mark and Don Standhaft for organising this race – which I think was close to faultless, wonderfully marshalled and controlled, over wonderful courses. And this year they even fixed the weather.
Some of us will shape our training through the winter determined to make next year’s edition of this race our own.
