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So I favoured Croft today instead of the training ride, for a women's coaching session and race.

I think there were 12 of us in the group, which was a fantastic turnout from the ladies! Varying abilities but I thought the coaching was top notch and I'm pretty sure we all got something useful out of it. So thanks a million to Andy and Michelle from BC who deserve full credit for getting this going.

Fair to say the race afterwards was pretty hard and tactically I got a bit wrong. (ok, a lot), but all good things and things I can easily improve I think, with a bit of practice.

Super riding from Fi today who came past me in the final sprint
Great news is that there are a lot of strong ladies in the region (kind of knew this already but never seen everyone together!)

hopefully we can muster up some more entries in this years races as the season goes on.

In other news, I'm probably stealing his thunder (sorry sharpy) but Rich Sharp had a fantastic ride in the cat 4 race, taking both the Prime AND the Win. Superb result.

As Jess has already said a great day at croft for both womens cycling and clifton cc we had 3 riders in the top 10. Jess and Fiona did a great ride starting with the scratch group made up of some quality riders. Esther who was 10th has only just turn 16 and has a really bright future ahead of her. Keep up the good work everyone

1 Katharine Broadbent Durham University Cycling Club
2 Iona Sewell GB Cycles.co.uk
3 Jo Blackburn Team Swift
4 Linda Young GB Cycles.co.uk
5 Karen Colleran Tyneside Vagabonds CC
6 Fiona Beard Clifton CC
7 Jess Bacon Clifton CC
8 Helen Tickner Rock Racing Team UK
9 Rachel Walmsley Ryton Tri Club
10 Esther Farnell Clifton CC

3 more sessions to follow over the next 3 Sundays all at Middlesbrough Cycle Circuit.

More details www.womenscyclesport.co.uk

Congratulations Sharpy!

After last time's chain incident, that was the first bunch race that I actually finished, it was definitely a learning experience. I think I ended up somewhere in the middle after not having any legs for the final gallop. After that it was handlebars down and tri-bars on to ride over to Crathorne and do my first '10 of the year in 23:23. That's my season started, with a mini stage race!

Thank you to Andy and Michelle for organising this. The coaching was good fun and informative.

The race was harder than i expected it to be. I think the smaller numbers (compared with my last race with 90+ people) and the presence of some strong and experienced ladies made it a tough 45 minutes for me, but it is a race and i don't think its supposed to be easy.

Much work needed on my sprint technique (or complete lack of it). I'm hoping Sharpy can give me some pointers, especially after his sprint to victory today

Congratulations Sharpy really well done

Don't really want to crash this thread as it is more about the ladies race, which was excellent event in itself!

But thanks all, was just one of those days where it all came together, right place, right time, right legs.

Great result, Sharpy.

The Selby-York stretch of the a19 is proving to be fertile training ground.



Martin

Well done Rich, Jess and Fiona...great stuff