Race Round Up – May 26

It was a good week of racing for the boys with our second senior race win of the season in the 2/3/4 crit at Solihull on Wednesday, an 11^th and 21^st place at a very hot BUCS national champs road race in Devon, and a solid performance in the GT Ellingworth Nat B in Lincolnshire.

The big event of the week was the U16 girls’ trip to Belgium, also in searing heat, where they took on the youth Tour of Flanders in Oudenaarde with a guest rider on loan from Derby Mercury. This was a huge step onto the big stage for all the team with a 120-rider field, a 53km course and several cobbled sections – a long way from your average UK youth race. They also got to watch our former Rose Lewis in action in the junior women’s race for her Macao-Cams team.

The girls followed that up on Monday with an outing at the kermis in Arendonk, a long way up to the north, where they had to race with the juniors. With a tight two-minute time cut in Flanders, it was a tough call to finish, but this racing is as much about getting a flavour of the big stage, and the girls stepped up well, plus they have next year to give it another go as well.