Cross Border Raid

[GKS]

Today myself and a number of ERC riders: Eric Easton, Les Ross, Marek Jurasinski, Ross Middleton and Jarlath Flynn travelled across the border to Morpeth for the Maureen Bain Memorial road race.

The Race was a short 25 mile out and back blast along rolling Northumberland roads, where rolling actually means lots of short, sharp climbs followed by equally short, sharp descents and fast sweeping corners.
 
There were no real breakaways getting away, the bunch happy to push up the climbs then ease off allowing me to maintain a position at the front end of things.
   
As this was a (very) short course the finish soon snuck up on us, it certainly caught me by surprise.  I was just starting to wonder how far from the finish we were (thinking probably 4 or 5 miles) when I passed the 1km to go sign, unfortunately at this point I was boxed in on the left hand side, luckily as the pace increased gaps opened up and I was able to get out and start winding up for the sprint.

I still have no recollection of actually crossing the finish line, only realising the race was over when those around me sat up!

Once back at the strip someone broke it to me that I was down as finishing 5th, news that i still cannot believe, and resulted in the most bizarre cycling injury I have ever suffered: I was jumping up and down when my back went into spasm and I collapsed in a heap in the middle of the hall!

Graeme.

[Jason F]

Well done G, great effort

[Jarlath]

You forgot to mention my quick thinking when applying focused pressure to a point on your back to ease the spasm, a trick I learned from watching Kung Fu when i was 6 years old:)  You also forgot to mention my 2nd place in the king of the mountains ( there was not even a tenner in it for me.......all that energy for notthing

[chris a]

Great result Graeme, clear you've been putting in the work, well deserved.