Team Series - Oakley 7th July

This race report needs two blogs: one from the sharp end (Kate!), one from the next group on the road (Nikki and Vikki).

Vikki: Nikki and I were on a mission to race ourselves fitter. There were a number of reasons why we felt that perhaps there were not quite enough miles in our legs, but we were up for the challenge anyway! The rain had stopped while we were on the start line. 50-odd riders lined up although the numbers on the backs suggested there should be more than 60, a few dns. Nikki and I were in our own little group from the off, Kate was up the road with the main bunch. Our group worked quite well with an effective through and off, it wasn't long before we were catching a few (puncture/wheel-change victims). Our group grew larger, then smaller again as people punctured or simply climbed off in the atrocious conditions. I don't know how many showers we endured during our 6 lap, 90km race but rule number 5 was applied in abundance. Climbing off did cross my mind but then I remembered I needed some miles... The last lap arrived, I felt I knew the course quite well and decided to lead out the sprint as we entered Oakley for the last time. This really was like our own little race for 10 but I'm not sure if everyone was up for contesting the sprint, in my mind positions meant points for the series. I was second in our group and Nikki 5th. Little did we know that Kate had claimed 11th overall up at the front! Team Pink placed 8th out of 17 teams (Kate scored a hefty number of points for 11th) and we were one rider short of a full counting team. A pretty good day out and also quite amusing when we compared grime lines (not tan lines) at the end!