EELMORE 25TH APRIL

The first round of the Pedal Heaven Eelmore series took place in atrocious, wet and
windy weather, on Wednesday 25th April. Not surprisingly therefore, the turn-out was
a little smaller than usual. However, a reasonable field of about 30 riders, including 3
from CCB assembled for the 3rd and 4th Cat race.

Our CCB riders were the evergreen Craig Atwell, and Joe Gray. Jon Harris was also
present for his first race of the season.

The first 20 minutes were fairly processional as everyone came to grips with the
conditions. The first action was a lone break by a young rider from VC Meudon.
He managed to build up almost a half lap lead at one point. However, Joe, keen to
emulate Craig’s recent success set off in pursuit. Over the next few laps he made
significant inroads into the lead but a stiff headwind on the home straight was not
helping. Soon after, the decisive move of the race came when a strong group of 5
broke clear from the front of the bunch. Working well together, they soon caught and
passed Joe and made it across to the lone leader who then joined them. Continuing to
work well together they opened a lead that was never going to be caught by a slightly
dis-organised peleton. Seeing the futility of persisting, Joe dropped back into the
bunch to recover.

With about 8 laps to go, Craig made a brave break from the bunch. Some really
determined riding saw him build a big gap. Spurred on by this, a couple of laps later
Joe tried the same thing but had with him another rider for company. They too built
a fairly comfortable gap from the bunch. So, as the chequered flag came out, the
bunch of 6 sprinted home, Craig soloed in for 7th and Joe out-sprinted his breakaway
companion for 8th. Jon led home the bunch sprint to finish in about 12th.

All in all good results considering the conditions but both races, the 3&4 and the E/
1/2, were scattered all round the circuit as a consequence of the weather, and more
punctures than I have ever seen at a circuit race!