Well, the new
North Yorkshire Evening RR League is up and running. Full marks to Cam for getting last night to happen, to everyone from the club who helped out either on the night or behind the scenes, and to everyone else who marshalled, drove, or otherwise supported. The short notice meant it wasn't a full field, but numbers were still pretty good with just under forty, and the remaining series events are filling up very fast.
The traffic management seemed to work very well - feedback from the club lollipop-holders appreciated. View from within the race was that there was lots of extra confidence at junctions - knowing there would be no rogue traffic to contend with. That just left the shockingly bad cornering to make things interesting...
It may have been 4ths-only but the race didn't hang around - numbers on the box show a gnat's-winkie under 25mph average for 33.5 miles. The still weather made it hard for anyone to split up the race; I parked myself around fifth wheel pretty much for the duration just in case anything interesting took off but it was just an occasional solo attack (full marks to Martin for his - as he ploughed up the railway bridge about 30sec in front of the bunch there was a murmered chorus of "well I didn't think he'd get that far..") - all of which got pulled back. Great riding by Toby for his win - much-deserved as he was up front for the whole race - and a good top-ten by Martin in what - his second or third race?
I kept getting asked "what power'r ya doing, Phil" on the way round so:- average 245W, 18% of the time freewheeling(!) and the graph for the final straight shows where it all went wrong; I followed the wheel of someone who looked strong on the early gallop from the junction but he conked halfway and I ended up braking - not recommended. About 450W average for that last minute (ie about what Jens Voigt will do for two hours in a TdF break).
Next, Escrick!