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I'll kick this off as it's a good excuse to put my feet up after today's Minty's Memorial vets race at Scrooby, near Doncaster. Plenty of Clifton elderly gentlefolk on the start sheet, with Cam, Tim and RichD in the A/B race and Andy and me in the C/D's. And a great day for it - you can forgive a chilly northerly when the sky's blue and the roads are dry; it was still pretty definitely armwarmer weather but (oh yes) the knees were out!

Our race set off at speed; Donny Wheelers rider Fred Easton had told me after our previous race that he intended to "go from t'f***ing gun" and he was true to his word. Sadly for him there were about thirty odd riders who reckoned they should be in any break, and the first two or three laps were spent with attack after attack getting dragged back by a strung-out bunch. The pace eased a bit after that but the succession of small groups slipping off the front and then getting caught continued pretty much throughout; I got in a couple of them, missed all the rest. Then it all got a bit confused...

As we crossed the line with two to go, the fella operating the lap board had accidentally hung up the number "1", and to compound this he decided to move the bell just at that moment, so that on the face of it we passed "one lap to go" and the sound of the bell. Much discussion ensued in the bunch with the general view being it was a cock-up and just keep riding assuming the bell had yet to come. However, a couple of small groups got off the front and as we approached the line, the front half of the bunch did a slightly half-hearted sprint. Once past the finish the lads up front commenced turning in the road, with the rest of us shouting "No! No! No!" and barging past. Eventually the bunch strung out again for the "real" last lap and I tucked in somewhere towards the front - well-placed to watch Fred take off again with about two miles to go to win it. The rest of us came to the foot of the climb to the line in a road-width bunch, and I picked a less-cluttered-than-usual path through it for a half-decent sprint and about tenth.

Haven't checked the tanlines but suspect they'll be good. How'd the A/B race go, chaps?

As Phil says, just great to be out on the bike with some half decent weather for a change. In hindsight AB race had bunch finish stamped all over it and was very much like the Donny Wheelers race a few of us did on the same course last year. All 3 of us put up a good show I think and were pretty active at the sharp end. Good ride from Tim, on a comeback after illness. Early on in the race, Rich mentioned something to me about "52,39". Occurred to me that sounded like unsual chainset combo and, anyway, I use a 50x34 and,quite frankly, this was really no time to talk about gear ratios... Rich proved much sharper than me however and had correctly identified probably the two strongest riders in the race. They were were a pretty well marked after that. Various people, including the three of us, did try and sneak into a break but the nature of the course proved it hard to make anything stick. In the end no. 52 did get away and presumably won the race. Bunch gallop at the finish was bit narrow and draggy. None of us, placed unfortunatley but, overall, I enjoyed the race.

The general thread seems to be devoted to the Pock Pedal, so I'll post in here instead ...

Today saw me continue my university sabbatical, set a new 10 mile PB and bag my first win! This was 'Roses', York Uni's annual sporting contest / battle re-enactment with Lancaster. The cycling, which for the first time actually counted towards the overall contest, was a 10 mile TT over 12.5 laps of the Salt Ayre circuit. I came home in 24:08 and 2nd place went to another Yorkie, which gave us the team win.

Next week I'll be back off sabbatical and in Clifton colours, hopefully for the Tyneside Vagabonds MTT. I haven't seen a start sheet for that yet, so I've no idea whether or not I've got a ride.