Race Report –  John Richards Junior Tour, August 29-31

The last major assignment of the season for the juniors, the race formerly known as the Junior Tour of Wales took place over the Bank Holiday weekend in mid Wales, where the Academy was represented by Joe Egan, James Saunders, Xander Brandon-Higgs, new rider Joel Davidson – a first year junior from Great Malvern who was riding his first stage race – and a guest rider from south-west Ireland, Tony Keneally. Sadly Mikey Ratcliffe was unable to ride following his crash in Belgium the previous weekend.

Day one was a split stage with a 105km road race over five laps of a brutal circuit close to Llandovery, run off in torrential rain, with two stiff climbs per lap, and a technical descent. Joe was had a bad day but survived, while James had a puncture mid-stage, and was unable to rejoin the race due to getting caught up in a tailback of traffic, and also dropped time, while Xander, Tony and Joel all kept in contact until the final ascent, with Tony and Joel finishing in the second group behind stage winner Finlay Storrie. That set them up for the afternoon’s 14.7km time trial, where Joel was the team’s best finisher in 25^th.

Sunday saw the riders roll out from Brecon for an extremely tough climbing stage, beginning with the lengthy ascent up to Radnor Forest, continuing with one and half laps of a grippy, technical circuit near Llandrindod Wells before heading west to Beulah over three 14% climbs, and then – deep breath – ascending to the Epynt viewpoint up a 3km ascent. The stage was dominated by a six-rider break including stage winner Harrison Hendy of Shibden, but for pretty much the whole field it was about getting through as best they could.

Xander and Joel remained in contact until the end of the first Llandrindod circuit, while Tony, Joe and James all stayed with what remained of the bunch until it split to smithereens on the Beulah roller coaster. The climb up Epynt was spectacular, and a very worthy successor to the Junior Tour’s traditional high point of the Tumble; it will undoubtedly draw huge crowds when the Tour de France goes up there next year.

The final stage was the most benign day of the three over 2.5 laps of a 50km circuit through the lanes east of Abergavenny, unfortunately the team was without James as he had picked up a stomach bug, hardly surprising given the amount of muck being thrown off the roads. Joe was an early attacker, but nothing stuck, and his race wasn’t helped by a puncture about 70km in, and a lengthy chase back to the peloton. No sooner had he got back than Xander punctured, and it took him about 15 miles to regain contact – a worthy effort, and impressive that he still had the legs to stay with the peloton until the very end.

Overall, Tony ran out 40^th, Joel 44^th, Xander 47^th and Joe 48^th, but getting through this one was an achievement in itself as this is about as tough as UK junior racing gets, reflected in a high number of DNFs. A massive learning experience which will be valuable for all the first year riders.