2 Counties RR was today. Paramount had Sam Blackbourn, me, Jon Goh and Annie Stanford representing. It's 3 laps of a 13 mile course, rolling terrain with a climb up a little lane to the finish line. First lap started brightly but all the little early attacks came to nothing. Over the climb going into lap 2, the two strongest lads got a gap to the bunch. I couldn't make it to them. The rest of the race was very frustrating: lots of little attacks with people's teammates trying to slow things down when someone went up the road, but nobody actually wanted to race or put any decent effort in. A thinned out bunch made it to the last lap and we hit the climb to the finish. Lots of very angry people fighting for position on a narrow poor road didn't make for a nice time, but luckily nobody crashed. I was tactically rubbish and couldn't fight my way through the field when I wanted to, so disappointingly finished outside of the top ten. I think Annie lost contact at some point as some vicious changes in pace made it tough at times. Sam cramped up and was unable to continue after the second lap. Jon finished just behind the bunch having been held up when a few lads punctured and blocked the road.
Hey ho, on to the next one.....
(Incidentally, the next one for me is the Paramount CRT Phil Ward Memorial road race on May 6th just down the road from Shrewsbury, so if you haven't got your name down to volunteer, then there's still time, and lots of different ways you can help!)
-Simon Bromley