Location: Rake, Sussex
Event: 7 April 2012
Team Corridori’s Elliott Porter sprinted to victory in CC Basingstoke’s Surrey League Road Race at Rake in Sussex, holding off his rivals to win the 2/3 cat race on Easter Saturday.
Porter, 20 and from Leatherhead, held off London Dynamo’s Harry Littlechild for the win over a 70-mile course which used almost nine laps of a testing circuit, which included a steep climb on each lap.
Once the race got underway two riders - Ben Jacobs (London Dynamo) and Dan Gillow (Charlotteville) - got away from the front of the bunch and they stayed away only for a lap before slipping back to the bunch.
On the third lap three riders Dan, Richard Horton (Team Primera-Specialized) and Ben now came to the front and set about putting 20 seconds on the bunch.
Once again these three were collected up by the bunch and next time round two different riders Ben and Richard Cartridge (Cadence Cannondale) were on the front. These two seemed to have picked the right point to attack as they soon had a gap of 30secs and seemed to be holding it.
On lap six the two leaders now had a gap of 20 seconds and Ben was struggling over the climb, but these two had a gap of 35 seconds to the bunch. The speed now increased in the bunch and by the end of the seventh lap the race was all back together again.
Through the finish line and the bunch were strung out and on the back of the course several riders try to get away but each stack comes to nothing as the bunch arrive at the bottom of the climb together.
The first over the climb was Elliott Porter (Team Corridori), and he manages in the last couple of hundred meters to stay ahead of a charging Harry Littlechild (London Dynamo).
3rd Cat Race
The first race in the morning was for third cats and was six and three quarters laps, a total of 60 miles. The road was damp and the early laps were quite slippery until the sun came out to dry the surface.
Soon after the start two riders Stuart Fahey (Brighton Mitre) and Tom Crouch (High Wycombe CC) pulled out a lead on the first complete lap of one minute which they increased to 1:30 by lap two.
The riders from Kingston Wheelers were trying to pull the race back but before the start of lap four the lead had increased to one minute fifty seconds.
With one lap to go the two leaders had a gap of one minute but their efforts came to nothing as with a couple of miles to go just before the last climb the leaders were caught.
Result:
2/3 Cat:
1 Elliott Porter (Team Corridori)
2 Harry Littlechild (London Dynamo)
3 Warren Jesse (VC Meudon)
4 Paul Edward (Carbon Sports)
5 Darren Peachey (Addiscombe CC)
6 Simon Hawley (Team Corley)
7 Stuart Harvey (I-Team CC)
8 Rory Townsend (Prestige VC)
9 Stuart Adair (Redhill CC)
10 Dean Corney (VC Meudon)
3rd Cat:
1 Steven Richards (unattached)
2 Mike Lancaster (VC Meudon @st
3 Rob Kirk (Kingston Wheelers) @ 5sec
4 Damien Breen (Kingston Wheelers)
5 Geoff Lulham (Bike Lab)
6 Rob Sharland (Kingston Wheelers)
7 Jordan Wade (VC St Raphael)
8 Mark Smith (Crawley Wheelers)
9 Gavin Francis (London Dynamo)
10 Gavin Starling (Brighton Mitre)
British Cycling would like to thank the organising team, officials and everyone else who helped promote this event. Our sport could not exist without the hundreds of people, many of them unpaid volunteers, who put in many hours of hard work running events, activities and clubs.
