Pearson CC out in force at Goodwood - 13 March 2011

Women's rep, Nicole Oh reports:

The Pearson girls kicked off their racing season at Goodwood on Sunday, with 4 pink starters (Vikki, Nikki, Charmaine and me!) in a field of 21. Initial pace was pretty slow, with no one wanting to ride up the front, until a couple of attacks split the group. Vikki, Charmaine and I made the front split of 12, with Nikki just behind in the second group. Vikki and I had discussed tactics on the car journey down - 1) to chase down any attack and 2) to attack ourselves with 5 or so laps to go. Plan 1 worked well, with one brave girl from AW cycles making a couple of attempts to get off the front, but was caught quite quickly each time. Plan 2 kind of worked - I managed to make a break with 4 laps to go (with said AW cycles girl in tow) only to run out of legs pretty much as soon as we were clear. More chain-gang training for me. Needless to say, the group of 12 was back together with 2 laps to go for a bunch sprint, where we failed miserably with team tactics and/or organisation, and all made our own sprints to the finish line. We look forward to some guidance and training sessions from our expert boy racers!

The results... Nicole 7th, Vikki 9th, Charmaine 10th and Nikki 13th, in her first ever race! Most importantly, she also had a great time, and will definitely be back for more. And thank you to Char for the excellent builders tea cake to re-fuel after the race!

Chris Rees and Dave Keaton also competed in the 4th Cat race finishing 11th and 23rd respectively. I know nothing of the internal unfoldings of the race, except the part where they lapped us, then were promptly hunted down by the lead girls group for riding too slow!