The HTRC Road Race Etiquette sessions are now into December so it was perhaps no surprise to see the 7th edition run in almost Arctic-like conditions.

 

8 riders managed to brave the sub-zero conditions to come out with myself being joined by Josh Ravn, Neil and Mandy Dean, Time Trial supremo Nick Rogers, photographer supremo Mike McAllister, Will Thomas and Andy Carroll who just about arrived on time.

 

The skill for the day was simply trying to stay up with some frosty parts on route. Not all of us achieved this though as I’ll explain further on.

 

After a quick stop at Guymer towers in Skidby to pay off my Xmas lunch debt, we headed towards Beverley on the main road to avoid any icy parts on the cycle path. Mike was on the front pretty much the whole way on this section due to the amount of traffic preventing a change from taking place.

 

 

We whizzed through Beverley and Tickton without any dramas but the cycle path next to the A1035 was thick frost, so we decided to ride single-file onto the main road. The pace here was fairly tough and all of a sudden I could here a faint voice in the distance behind me. It was Mandy who was starting to drift off the rear of the group. We eased up just before the roundabout at Leven to let her back on.

 

We remained together through Leven and headed onto Brandesburton. Coming into the village there’s a relatively sharp 90 degree right hander which in these conditions needed to be taken with care. I said to Mike ‘easy round here, I don’t want to come off’. No sooner had I said that than Josh lost all grip and went down almost taking Andy out in the process. Andy said that Josh’s bike had actually come into contact with both of his wheels so he was very lucky to stay up. There was no ice/frost on the ground, so it may well have been a case of Josh just overshooting the corner. He did say he was a little caught out as he expected to be turning off further up the road. We gathered round to see if he was OK with Mike deciding to take pictures of a clearly shaken up Josh. Other than a scuffed set of shorts and a scratched gear lever all was OK and we set off again.

 

Nick had set off before the rest of us for a natural break, but on the exit of the village of Brandesburton we had managed to lose him. In order to get to North Frodingham we had to take a left in the village, so we anticipated that he’d gone straight on. Andy took it upon himself to look for him while the rest of us waited. After about 5 minutes Nick then appeared from the opposite direction to where we were going to. We tried to notify Andy who was now at the A165 roundabout just outside the village but he wasn’t picking up his phone. Andy eventually came back to us, but was unaware that Nick had returned. To add more confusion to the situation, Nick, when returning to us, had carried on past us looking for Andy so we were back to square one again. Fortunately just a couple of minutes later Nick appeared and we were all together and able to carry on.

 

We headed North with a seemingly backwind on this section through Frodingham and onto Wansford. I was hoping to get some through and off going around here but due to the conditions it would have been a bit too risky. The road between Wansford and Skerne was particularly bad with frost. I did try and bring a bit of sprinting into the equation so as not to abandon all forms of road race training. I led out Will for a sign in Hutton Cranswick just like Mark Renshaw would for Cav on the Champs Elysees, albeit somewhat slower in our case.

 

 

After a slight delay at Hutton Cranswick for a train, we headed further west towards Bracken Farm, opting out of going along the main road back to Beverley. Mandy was keen on getting to 44 miles so she’d hit the 100 mile mark for the week and we weren’t far off now at just over 30.

 

After crossing Bracken Farm under the bright sun, we hit the undulating roads around the Lund, Lockington area where Mandy was start to feel the pain again. She showed tremendous spirit though to keep going and hang on.

 

We’d now hit the B1248 road back into Beverley with the pace being upped by a rejuvenated Will who was starting to show flashes of his best form. He did enough to drop Andy, Mandy & Neil leaving a group of 5 that included myself, Josh, Nick & Mike. For a change I opted to go right into Cherry Burton but Mandy, Neil and Andy headed the shortest way home, with Mike hot footing it back to try and catch them up. Whether he did or not I’m not sure, but good tt practice all the same.

 

So that left a quartet of me, Josh, Will and Nick to head home via Bishop Burton. Before we got to the village and the A1079 crossing, we came up to a short sharp drag that has a knack of sapping the legs. Nick decided to give us a demonstration of his TT power by spurting up the steepest section of the climb. He’s a very good time-triallist in the height of the season and that was on show as he dropped first Will then Josh and eventually me just before the crossing. We regrouped once on the other side of the A1079 and headed on towards Walkington.

 

There was a final sting in the tail before we got to Little Weighton with Nick and me pulling clear once more but the other two weren’t far behind and we coasted into Skidby together.

 

 

By the time I’d got home I’d covered 51 miles at an average of 17.7mph. I was perhaps expecting a slightly faster average with the flat terrain and the powerhouses in the group but the cold weather and icy conditions clearly had an adverse affect.

 

For my rider of the day I’d have to go with Mandy. She always shows great enthusiasm and spirit on our rides and never fails to smile regardless of the circumstances. She’s also the 1st female member of our racing team and we’re all hoping she’s going to show the rest of the racing ladies around here a thing or two.

 

Next week will most likely be the penultimate session and hopefully the conditions won’t be as treacherous, for Josh’s sake at least.

 

Mark Walker
HTRC RR Secretary