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So Jacques & I went over to the Scarborough Festival of cycling (circuit racing) this morning.

Not so many women - 5, maybe 6 so we went in with the 4th cats. Nice circuit - was just on the top section so no big hilly bit, but a little windy & the finish on a bit of a draggy incline. Only one nasty corner for me to make a mess of & actually most folk were pretty sensible on it. (though I was a bit twitchy a few times )

24mph average speed & some good strong riders. Had an absolute blast - tried to stay mostly in the middle of the group & not trip anyone up & managed to finish somewhere towards the front. 3rd Woman (behind 2 very strong cat 2 ladies) so I think I get some shiny points for that (band 4 so maybe even 10?)

Jacques had a cracking ride in the cat4s - I'll leave it to him to report.

Can't believe I've got points - and my first envelope with a fiver too!

Excellent! Well done.

Jess only convinced me on Thursday to go to Scarborough with her for the cat 4 race. It would be my first race and I didn’t have an idea what to expect from it. My expectations ranged from being dropped after a few laps to nasty mass crashes.

At the start line I was slighthly intimidated by the shiny gear and shaved legs on display but the first few laps didn’t seem too quick and I managed to stay with the bunch. I was waiting for my legs to get tired but I had a good day and to my surprize I was still with the bunch on the last lap. I tried to get to the front in order to have a good position coming out of the nasty corner Jess mentioned above. When the sprint was launched I was right at the front and sprinted to a third place, only to discover that two guys were waiting for us a the side of the track. They must have escaped early on without me noticing. Still, with 5th place overall, 4th man (yes I got chicked !) and £8 cash prize I’m more than happy with my result and can’t wait for the next race (well aware that I probably had a good share of beginners luck.)

Big thanks to Jess for giving me the necessary push to try out road racing and well done for her 3rd place !

Great stuff, well done. Olivers Mount is great, especially the full circuit, suprised there wasn't more Clifton riders there, got to be better than Tockwith.

Well done both! Blimey, two Clifton riders in the points at the same race - it's just like the old days....

Fantastic result! Sounds like a great event. Wish I'd been there...
Tom

Bah! Young whippersnappers doing something (a place in a road race) I've being trying to achieve for nearly twenty years .

Well done! It would have been great to be there to cheer you on.

Thanks guys but I'm not so impressed with my points now!
Letter in the post this morning, apparently I am now a Cat 3 and can no longer ride Cat 4 only. How is this possible?!

Genuinely I thought you got a season before you got upgraded.

Some of us have had many, many seasons! Ten points is ten points....

I was wondering what the rules on points were when you have a day licence.. I had a day licence for the race in Scarborough and came 4th. I applied for a licence straight after the race but will the points I won now be lost? Does anyone know?

In addition to that the BC-website actually shows a John Simons as 4th and my name is nowhere to be seen (in the provisional results I'm shown as 4th and there is no John Simons in sight)... I guess they got confused because of similar names..

Thats not how it works - you don't get points unless you have a race license and points can't be added restrospectively, at least you know you can do it now!

thanks for clearing that up. Too bad though.. probably the last time I was anywhere near the points

So you can just keep applying for day licenses and keep winning the cat4 races without having to be afraid to be promoted to cat3 or 2.. although you probably have to be pretty lame to do this