busy

Evan Oliphant

• Tour Britain prep
• racing time
• Haut Var
• Tour Med
• track racing

Well a lot’s been happening since I last posted. For a start our trip to France to compete in the Tro Bro Leon and Tour de Finestere turned into a bit of an epic as the volcano in Iceland meant our flights were cancelled and we had to drive all the way to Southampton to get the ferry to France. The races themselves were fast and on pretty hilly roads around Brittany. NZ champ Bauer made the main group and finished around the front, while I finished in a group about 10 minutes down after a long hard day. Tro Bro Leon, the following day, was a different prospect, known as the “mini Paris-Roubaix” it was similar to the East Midlands CiCLE, basically lots of narrow /twisty roads into narrow twisty farm tracks (repeat for 200km and you get the picture.) I got to 100 mile and punctured and while I was stopped getting service the whole convoy crashed and were stuck in the ditch so I didn’t manage to get back to the front of the race. After a hard weekend of racing we were faced with a repeat 10 hour car journey back up to Edinburgh. However, this turned into a bit of a nightmare as Burnie managed to fill his OWN car with diesel instead of petrol just after leaving Manchester. Queue a night at Mr Hayles’ and almost 30hrs of driving in 5 days I was back in Edinburgh.

Next up was the Scottish 10, this year taking place up at Fort William, I’d got myself a shiny new Look 496 TT machine especially for this as and collected it from Endura HQ a few days before the Saturday event. The course was not what I expected, rather than a twisty technical course like I’d expected the course recon basically told me that it was going to be straight out and back, no messing about with corners. One of the few Scottish titles I haven’t won is the 10 and I was really motivated to get a good ride in especially because it was the Jason Macintyre memorial but 3 miles from the finish, I was nearly knocked off my bike by a passing car. I ended up with wrecked overshoes and skinsuit and some red paint on the tri-bars but fortunately I stayed upright to finish 4^th. I doubt that this stopped me winning but my Garmin file showed I was held up for a bit and never as fast again through the last 3 miles so a medal was well within reach.

The Drummond Trophy was next on the “races I haven’t won” list and we had a full Endura team ready and prepped for this. I rode across to the break after the first 30mins and it quickly looked like most of Endura had made the move. The pace in the group wasn’t super hard and Route master James Macallum even managed to arrange a stop for a pee at the top of the transmitter climb. On the run in myself and James found ourselves away with Robbie Hassan and Rob Wilkins, myself and James managed to get rid of them and spent the last 20 miles smashing each other and I finally got the win.

The Lincoln GP was a bit of a disaster for the Endura racing team, I crashed and had to be paced back up through the convoy. While we had 3 riders in the lead group only to have mechanicals take out 2 leaving only Bauer to get 8^th in his first Lincoln and myself to try and work my way back up through the groups to eventually finish 20^th.

Back to Scotland and the Sam Robinson, I made the early move with three Glasgow Wheelers and Paul Rennie, we were out front until just over halfway though the race before another group came up to us. I attacked on the 2^nd big climb of the day and ended up winning by over 30secs at the end, on a warm and sunny day in the Trossachs.

At the end of May we ended up in Dumfries for a round of the National Circuit Series and a Premier Calendar. The circuit series turned out to be a Tour Series grudge match. I attacked a fair bit during the race and ended up in the lead group with team mates James and Wilko with me finishing 4^th and Ian Wilkinson getting the team it’s first National series Crit win of the year.

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The Sunday Premier, was a very fast race with no break getting much of a gap for the 1^st 40miles. Eventually a break formed with me and Callum Wilkinson representing Endura racing. Unfortunately Callum was finding it tough after being sick all week and was dropped and later crashed, leaving me in the front group where I was pretty well worked-over going into the last 20miles. Despite being away solo in the last 4 miles I was caught and ended up 6^th which means I’m still high up in the Premier Calendar overall competition.

Instead of a relaxed spin on the Monday after Dumfries I went down to the British 8km Grass Track championships and won the title for the 3^rd time on a hot day at Richmond winning by around half a lap.

I haven’t ridden any of the tour series crits yet (even though I won a hotspot sprint in the Portsmouth round when I was 400 miles away in Edinburgh!!!!!) Next up for me is the Rydale premier Calendar which I have won before then the Scottish and British road race champs