Josh Day rode a brilliant race at the TLI Sandie Radford road race on Saturday, getting fifth place after being in a breakaway for much of the race. The event is for all categories of riders and is held on a 35 mile course in the New Forest, with a real mix of up and down roads in amongst the wandering animals of national park.
The race started pretty quickly, there was lots of comings and going s at the front with a few riders getting left behind early on.
Twos and threes off the front eventually came together. Josh had joined up with Rowan Horner (VC St Raphael), Andy Bryson, Harry Bulstrode and Phil Reynolds (all from Peter Hansford Cycles) plus Toby Neave and Ian Legg (both from Primera). The field behind was travelling rapidly but this group continued to move away throughout the race and it was clear that the winner would come from these seven riders.
Once the long laps across the heath were done it was on to two shorter laps including the very steep finishing hill of Piper’s Waight up out of Nomansland. The Peter Hansford trio tried to use the numerical advantage to shake off the others, while Horner also tried to get away during the closing stages. On the second and final time up the climb, Horner and Reynolds edged clear with Horner crossing the line first with Josh a few seconds behind in fifth.
Further back, Barney Cox and James Chant had spent the race in the bunch, which gradually got smaller as riders were dropped. Barney did really well, hanging in there until about 5 miles to go. A very fast mile or two just after the first time up Piper’s Waight caught out a couple more riders as well as Barney. James was in the lead of the pack as they started the final climb but gradually slipped down the order in the slow motion ‘sprint’ for the line, coming in in about 18th. Both Barney and James were really pleased with their rides considering the quality of some of the opposition.
