My second race in 2 days, this one on a track I had never ridden before. After navigating our way through Manchester, we arrived, signed on and walked around the course. The course looked tight, with one hairpin and many other corners, and was short at just under a kilometre. My warm up was cut short due to riders being allowed on the track, and though there were still 15 minutes until the race my dad said to go and ride round to learn the circuit. When we came to the start I was on the 3rd row, which was all right as it was a narrow course. The race was 45 laps, which was going to take just over an hour, so I hoped the race wouldn’t be too fast at the start.
It was fast. Lots of different riders attacked at the beginning, and as there was a team of Giant Halifax riders there those attacks were not going anywhere. I covered a move early on, and attacked hoping that a couple of riders would come with me. Alas, nobody did, and I got to spend a few laps riding round off the front (A good way to get notice I suppose!). I gave up eventually, and tried to recover in the group. For the next few laps I stayed towards the front, but eventually I began to get rather tired.This was understandable, as I had made several attacks off the front and we were now 45 minutes into the race. Just coming down the finishing straight for the final time, a rider clipped a wheel and caused other riders (Including me) to slow down. I was tired already, so I couldn’t get back to the leaders. I held my position in the sprint and came 16th, and enjoyed racing aggressively rather than just riding in the peleton.