Location: Welwyn, Hertfordshire
Event: 24 June 2012
Report: Snowdon Sports
Mark Baines (Spirit Racing) won a hard-fought contest in the Kenneth Lush Memorial Road Race on Sunday.
The course, which took in 80 miles of racing over 10 laps of a course that included roundabouts, a uphill section and long drag finish, was being battered by wind making conditions even tougher.
After an hour of racing, a six-man break was on with the bunch that was left becoming a war of attrition with exhaustion setting in.
There were a few crashes and punctures and by the halfway stage, 10 riders had retired and of the 57 starters, a field of 31 completed.
The six man break was soon joined by another two riders, although the end of the race saw the six pull away again with the extra two straggling behind.
With the finish line approaching, it came down to a two-man sprint with Mark Baines and Tim Elverson (Pedal Heaven RT) gunning for victory.
It was Baines that prevailed, leading from Elverson by no more than a bike length. Behind them, a group of ten came in together with the rest of the riders coming home in groups of two and three.
Mark Baines said: “The weather didn’t help, the corners coming out of the roundabouts were a slippery and so you had to take them quite gingerly.
“There was a break of about eight of us I think and I there were two Felt Colbornes riders and two from Pedal Heaven so was watching them.
“Then with about 200 metres to go, I just sprinted and managed to hold on to win. It was very close, there was only about a wheel in it.
“I just got the rest of my points for the first category licence and so this was my first race at that level so it was quite a surprising win really.
“I’ll be racing in the premier calendar next weekend to try and get a bit more experience.”
Results:
E/1/2/3:
1 Mark Baines (Spirit Racing)
2 Tim Elverson (Pedal Heaven RT)
3 Alex Higham (Felt Colbornes)
4 Ian Knight (Team Corley Cycles)
5 Roger Maidment (East London Velo)
6 Andy Betts (Felt Colbornes)
7 Paul Pickup (Pedal Heaven Twenty3c.co.uk)
8 Wojciech Szlachta (Orbea)
9 Ben Simmons (Team Wiggle)
10 Chris McNamara (Pedal Heaven RT)
British Cycling would like to thank the organising team, officials and everyone else who helped promote this event. Our sport could not exist without the hundreds of people, many of them unpaid volunteers, who put in many hours of hard work running events, activities and clubs.
