I was the only Welwyn rider in this excellent promotion by the Kenton RC.  It was an 80km road race made up of 4.5 laps of the Cheddington Mentmore Circuit near Whipsnade.  The course is undulating but only has one hill which is steep but short.  There are long fast flat sections, a few 90 degree turns and slightly hairy chicane through the village of Wingrave.  

With 2 laps to go it was pretty clear to me that unless something untoward happened I was going to finish this race and I started to think about what I should be doing.  A couple of crashes which I narrowly avoided convinced me that I needed to move up to stay out of trouble but that was easier said than done especially on the descents when I was spinning out with my compact chainset and nearly losing touch with the riders in front of me.  On the final lap with two riders away the pace picked up and the bunch splintered towards the bottom of the main climb.  I got on the right side of the split, dug in on the climb and sprinted out of the next tight corner and found myself about 10th wheel with about 2 miles to go and the bunch strung out in line.  That was where I should have stayed until the finish gallop but the red mist came down and as the pace slackened I had a dig off the front.  I must have got a gap of only 20m and then everyone sat behind me and despite some radical weaving and frantic flicking of my elbow I couldn't get off the front so I ended up killing myself giving everyone a lead out until with about 700m to go they all went past me without so much as a thank you.  I rolled over the finish line about 100m behind the main bunch delighted to have finished my first road race but also cursing my own stupidity.