A colourful array of sixty riders, a testing course and wall to wall sunshine are the best ingredients you can put together for an exciting road race. Plenty of local riders to support, seven in fact from Hull Thursday, and lots of good vantage points to see the race.

The course starts in Middleton in the Wolds, goes up to North Dalton, turns towards Warter but climbs south after two or three miles and then goes on farm roads back to Middleton; six times to complete 90 kilometres (57 miles). Although not open to elite and first category riders there were quite a few in the field who had enjoyed this status and they contributed a lot to the overall speed of the race.

After one lap Martin Pitchford had a three second lead from the two junior Batchelor boys from York Cycle Works – these two had dominated an event at Burton Fleming a fortnight earlier. The bunch was only ten seconds away but a few already were struggling. Paul Joliffe couldn’t manage the pace, nor could John Brierley and Terry Parker, Lewis Jackson unexpectedly was shelled out; he thought he’d go up to Julian Gromett to get in an early break and paid for his efforts. This lap was covered in exactly 20 minutes, very fast, and the second was only 3 seconds slower.

At the end of this second lap a nice break had been established which had a lead of 37 seconds. Very promising, it contained the three 1st lap riders plus Ryan MacLachlan who had made a valiant effort to get up to them.

By the halfway mark this break was down to 28 seconds but the lap time was half a minute slower. Despite this Matthew Fenton had gone out the back.

The four breakaways had slowed down to 20’ 45” on lap 4 and the bunch was starting to breathe down their necks again, only 13 seconds behind.

With the bell ringing a  lap to go, there were three new riders out in front: Julian Ransbottom (obviously made his effort when Pitchford was caught) with Mike Moss and Simon Day. Having completed the fastest lap in 19’ 58” they had a 45 second lead on the bunch although Dave Shackleton was trying hard to get across to them.

It was almost a foregone conclusion that “Rambo” should win, but Mike Moss got a fine third place. Dave Shackleton came in fourth but it was a great bid surprise to see young Mattie Barratt well off the front of the bunch to take fifth. Another surprise was to see Vince Cartwright, also a junior, leading in the bunch to take 6th. Both of these lads are novices and, as juniors, have to ride restricted low gears. Really excellent rides from both of them. Also in the bunch were Chris Burton and Dean Fulstow, and not far away were Darren Bendelow and Nathan Chester. I don’t know what happened to Steve Macklin but he did confide in me that it was a very fast race.

Result