British Road Championships Medal
Ross Creber | Friday 2nd July, 2010
Firstly apologies for not posting a blog in a long time! Since my last diary entry I have been busy racing including the five day stage race Tour Rhone Alpes Isere. My focus for all my hard training and racing was to be in peak condition leading into the British National Championships. In May after I sat my first year exams at University I started my massive summer time off from uni , going back in September.
Endura Racing have been flat out the last month during the Halfords Tour Series with the crit riders. As I am not a crit rider I based at home racing and training. I went into the Scottish Road Race Championships as defending champion and was aiming to defend it. I was riding very well at the race but unfortunately missed the break so crossed the line in 4th behind my Endura Racing team mates Evan Oliphant, James McCallum and Gary Hand. The week after the Scottish RR was my last race before the National Championships. The Davie Bell is the perfect tough and testing course to indicate what condition you are in. I finished in second place behind a flying Evan Oliphant, and knew that I was in good shape before the Nationals.
The National Road Race Championships was based in Barnsley in Lancaster. The course was as tough as they come. We had 15laps of an 8mile course with a 6min, 3min and 1min climb a lap, with a total of 4500 meters of climbing over the 115mile race (2.5 times up Alp D’huez). I had prepared well for the race and knew I was racing well, power in training was increased and motivation for a result was high. Wilko, Evan, Davy and myself rode to the course and did 2 laps of the course the day before the race to check it out. I had looked at the course map and profile and it looked tough, but from practice it proved to be a whole load tougher. After practice it was back to hotel Wilko, was a 5star for sure.
Going into the race I knew how hard it was going to be due to the nature of the course and the quality of the field. I did not want to set any goals and targets before the race other than to give it my best effort. Endura Racing Team plan was to ride for Evan and Rob P for the senior race, also Scott Thwaites and myself for the Under 23 category. We were prepared well for the course with our Look 595’s set up with zipp 202 wheels making them super light.
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The 135 riders including Millar, Cavendish, Thomas, Hunt, Loyd for UCI Pro Tour Teams, rolled out at 12pm in the 30*C to tackle a gruelling 15laps of the course. The racing was full gas from the second the neutralised flag dropped at the bottom of the 1.6km hard climb, and riders were getting dropped at this stage of a 180km race! Through out the race I fuelled and hydrated well and tried to ride as conservatively as possible, so I had the legs at the end. After 5hr30mins of tough racing I finished 14th overall and got a Bronze medal in the under 23. Endura racing and myself were really, really pleased with this result and all the hard work and focus I put into the race paid off.
This week I have had a solid week of training in some lovely Scottish weather. Saturday night I am racing Edinburgh Nocturne, which I am really looking forward to. Hope some of you can come along to watch bike racing at its best in the streets of the capital. www.nocturneseries.com/edinburgh
