Tour of Cambridgeshire Gran Fondo

It was definitely a race, or at least for me for the first 20-30km and the last 15km or so. I got spat out the back of the front group as I lost the psychological battle with myself that if I didn't back off I'd never make it around. I then found myself in a small group of 6 doing turns until we caught a 20 or so riders and soon after we were caught by a fast moving group. As we came off of the airfield, we were on a good pace with riders doing through and off, with one guy in yellow doing most of the work through Ramsay St Mary's and Ramsay Heights, chasing a group of around 30-40 riders so our ranks swelled again. Unfortunately at this juncture the pace dropped off with nobody willing to stick their head in to the wind, and that is pretty much how it stayed until we reached Yaxley.

As we rose up the high street some big efforts to split the peloton were made, this caused a few riders near the front to go backwards, and some impatient and tired bike handing skills came to the fore as those much stronger tried to get past. At this point I decided the race for the line was now back on and I made my move to stay up near the front.

Or, at least I thought the race was on until we had gone through Hadden into the narrow lane and the pace dropped off again. As we turned on to the Oundle Road where another touch of wheels brought down riders behind me. The road opened up and accordingly the pace went up and at times we were barrelling along at a nifty 50kph, up to 10-15 wide across the road at times, as various riders fought to maintain position and various pace lines forming left and right. I had not realised how close to the finish we we were as we approached the roundabout, though I made every effort to stay out of danger as near the front as could be without sticking my nose out as I picked out rider's wheels to follow in my age group. We hit the roundabout, a big squeal of brakes in front and around me, the choice language faded as I stamped on the pedals trying to maintain position, a flick left and a right hander in to the finishing straight and across the line to a well deserved bottle of water.

So reviewing the results, I finished in the third large group some 11 minutes down on the winner. TBH, I was aiming for a top 15 finish in my age group, but 26th is not so shabby.

Great event, and for the most part well organised. What would I do different next time?

Post out race numbers to those not in the 1st pen, very few stood and watched the race briefing video anyway. Thus avoiding having to be there at least 2 hours beforehand. I don't think there was a traffic management issue on the day.
Portaloos for ladies and number 2 and a screened off trough inside Pen 1
Segregate by age group in pen 1 as was originally planned; there would be no need to line up one hour before. 10 mins; 15 mins max. I understand the UCI commissaire changed this. FFS,it is not his race, it is the organiser's race who set out what he thought was the best strategy. UCI stop meddling!

There was some dodgy bike handing skills at times and I witnessed more crashes in this event than in the last two years of racing, but I suppose that is to be expected in an event like this and kind of goes with the territory.

But more important than all of this was the fantastic support we received not only from those stood in the villages, but on the roadside corners pointing out direction to the peloton and in the hedge rows too. It really did give me that Tour de France feeling that I've not experienced when hoofing it around some road circuit at 9am on a Sunday morning somewhere out in the British Countryside.