SERRL 3 Day

I will be posting a blog later in the week when i have some energy... but I thought that I would post a few pictures up from the race... There are LOADS more to come though!

The Next Few Weeks

The majority of the team are having this weekend off from racing as it is becoming clear that there are some tired legs out there in the peloton. After that I have a hectic few weeks

My Schedule is as follows:

22nd May - Central Divisional road race championshios Elite,1,2

28th, 29th, 30th May - SERRL 3 Day Stage Race

5th June - SERRL (to be confirmed)

12th June - SERRL Biddenden

18th June - Hetton Park Junior National Series Crit (Newcastle)

25th June - CC Giro Curborough National Series Crit (Birmingham)

3rd July - Junior National Road Race Championships (Newcastle)

4th July - Extended Endurance and Climbing Training Period (South of France)

Wouter Weylandt

Cycling lost a talented rider today in the Giro, I thought I would do a blog tribute to the team and all of Weylandt's friends and family.

Isle of Man Junior Tour (national series) 2011

The junior Isle of Man tour is held over three days with a prologue time trial, and two road stages. The race is also part of the Junior National series (a series of races where the top riders come from all over the country to race in and fight for the title). This year representing the team was myself (http://charliefawkeridersblog.blogspot.com/), Tom Laker (http://lakertom.blogspot.com/) and Brock Duncumb-Rogers (http://brockduncumbrogers.blogspot.com/).

Tom Laker and I travelled up on Wednesday 26^th April after a night of racing at Goodwood the previous evening where ‘Goodwood Star’ Brock Duncumb-Rogers managed to get a 2^nd place in the Elite race and Drew Holmes (http://www.drewholmescycling.co.uk/) getting 4^th, both very good rides may I add.

Me and Tom Laker were fortunate to ride both road race circuits on Thursday which gave us that extra bit of extra knowledge that some riders may not have.

Friday’s Prologue was a 1.3km dash along the Sea front, literally within metres of the water, it was just up and a hairpin around a corner then i dash back to the line. There isn’t much more to say apart from the sea ‘breeze’ was off the scale!

Saturday’s circuit was particularly challenging with quite a hard climb in it which followed a rolling decent. This road was really the definition of rolling before getting to the bottom where there was a much welcomed switchback onto the coast road. And of course being a junior race everybody likes to break as late as possible and see who can pull off the best skid so that corner was often carnage! The coast road was particularly hard with strong crosswinds before turning left into a town with some ‘kermesse like corners’ before another hard stretch of road with high winds before hitting the climb again!

Sunday: The circuit used for this race was extremely quick, but still windy. In general it was flatter apart from the climb which was nowhere near as challenging. The hardest part of the circuit which we learnt on race day was over the top of the climb, the short decent before a 90 degree left hander and then a slight uphill kick which was hard if you were sitting to hard back.

Race Time

The Prologue Was very hard as the winds had picked up and we all were set off at about half past 8. After a good noisy warm up we were all ready to go (Brocks rollers are very loud) I finished the Ride in 13^th with 1.46, Brock was 23^rd and Tom Laker 36^th.

Stage 2 was the first road race (hilly one) the race panned out to be so hard with all of us being in good positions throughout. I felt really good for the majority of the race. 11 laps of the circuit however took it’s tole on me! Tom Laker was dropped from the race. Brock was also dropped after getting into a move with Jon Dibben and Owain Doull. I managed to stay in the bunch (what was left of it) for the whole race but the last time up the hill I had nothing left to give and just managed to beat Josh Papworth (ODP). The General Classification after Stage two was as follows:

Charlie Fawke: 35^th @4:54

Brock Duncumb Rogers: 43^rd @ 40:23

Tom Laker: 55^th @ 1:12:25

Stage Three was a fast race. The race started off at great speed and it didn’t do to well considering we had raced twice already that weekend and my legs were hurting from Saturday’s stage and I know I wasn’t the only one with that feeling! Unfortunately Tom Laker didn’t finish the race. Brock was away on his own on the last lap until 2K to go which would have got him third. Matt Holmes and Owain Doull were away on their own from the gun and got 1^st and 2^ndand the rest was a bunch sprint. The race was 6 laps then peeling off onto the coast road for the finish. 200m before peeling off there was a savage crash which me and Brock got caught up behind but we still were on a bunch finish.

Overall it was a good weekend I think and we are all getting stronger in the national levelled races. I would personally like to thank Tom Lakers Grandparents for taking me for the weekend and On Behalf of Brock I would like to thank his parents for taking him and helping us on the side of the road. Everyone’s help was much appreciated!

Final GC:

Charlie Fawke: 33rd @4:23

(I wrote this for the team website)

Thanks for Reading, Charlie