Race Report – Tour De Tesco Youth Race – Louie takes the win!
Another great result in Youth A from Louie Priddle in North Devon on 1st May. Here is Louie’s report
Today I competed in the second race of the tour of Tesco series. I turned up to the race in pouring rain and cold conditions. I was worried that the car park would be greasy and would have to take extra care around each of the tight corners on the circuit. The younger racers set off and the rain started to settled and the car park did start to dry up which was a plus, but it wasn’t 100% dry. I jumped on my rollers to start my warm up whilst watching the D’s C’s and B’s racing. There was a few crashes in their races but nothing bad, this told me that the crit was still going to be fairly greasy for when I race so I’d have to take extra care on each of the corners. Warm up complete I headed over to the line and had the debrief from the race judges and they told us to take extra care for obvious reasons.
The race started and I had a horrible start. I couldn’t clip in and struggled to get going so I was in about 5th going into the first bend. But some how by the en of the first lap I found my self on the front pushing it through each of the bends, as the race progressed I did start to gain confidence and push harder and harder around each of the corners. About 15 laps in it was me and another lad who rides for C.S Dynamo who was sitting on the front whilst I sat in. On one of the corners he went super wide carrying too much speed and hit a drain cover and his back wheel slid from underneath him and started to drift but it all happened in a split second for me and luckily he stayed up right and we carried on just me and him lapping most of the other riders. Unfortunate the same rider from CS Dynamo didn’t stay on for long, on the last lap he went into the first corner at around 25mph and went wide and hit the barriers and flipped over which I avoided by about half and inch. That was close! This meant that I was in first on the last lap and I made sure I took 100% care going into each of the corners to make sure I didn’t come off as well, but I didn’t and took my first ever win! – This was my first ever win in cycling from when I started back in race BMX in 2007
