The hill out of Newbald village provided a suitable battlefield for the sixty six riders that started in the club’s Spring Road Race.  Favourites were difficult to predict; with the wind behind on the climb I thought Karl Downes was in a good position, I wasn’t too sure of Dan Keena’s fitness and never too sure of the West Riding lads, particularly the lads from Sheffrec who always seem to show well. Our own hopes were on Jacob Trotter and Joe Rainey who both had been performing well lately.

The real racing started immediately hitting the back road at full speed stretching the field, enhanced further by the downpour for ten minutes on this first lap. Animators here were Gareth Owen (Team Swift) and Steve Coates (We Love Mountains) who finished the first lap in 21:10, ten seconds ahead of a dozen riders with little splits of twos and threes broken on the climb. A difficult situation here for a number of riders – if they didn’t get back before the turn on to the back road the gap would widen.

Owen and Coates stayed away for the next four laps sharing the primes. And the gap to the peloton fluctuated, 10 seconds the first lap, then 40 seconds, then 20 seconds and when it got to over a minute on the fourth lap it looked like they might stay away. However, a concerted effort brought that minute back and the prime contested on lap five by a small group was won by Jonathan Wolff (Sheffrec).

No doubt the judging would be easy at the finish, and so it proved. James Allen crested the hill and had time to look around as he freewheeled over the finishing line for a well-deserved win. Lapping was fairly consistent with times of 21:10, 21:37, 21:59, 21:54, 21:55 and 21:15.