A sunny, dry and warm day out at East Hanningfield defied the slightly wet forecast for today's London Phoenix Grand Prix over 92k for categories 2/3/4.
With three primes on offer, five riders - Tim Butt (Maldon and District), Colin Ward (Essex Roads), Wayne Maguire (PCH UK RT) Peter Hargreaves and Mark Westrup (both Strada Sport) - took an early gamble and quickly built up an early lead of one minute over a steady bunch.
Butt hoovered up the first two primes but the bunch had put in a tremendous chase, and at half distance the catch was made for four of the breakaways with Colin Ward attacking to stay away for three more six-mile laps in pursuit of a solo win.
By the bell, he was back in the peloton, but had bagged the last prime as a consolation. The penultimate lap then sprung the race winning move, as Hugo Humphries (Leeds Uni CC), Lee Desborough (St Ives CC) and Russell Ford (Glade CC) gained a narrow advantage over the fast moving peloton and managed to work together to stay away with Humphries needing to dig deep to outsprint Desborough on the slight uphill ride in Pan Lane.
Ford took third with the peloton being led in 19 seconds later by Ian Franklin (PCH UK RT) from Lee Rowe (Finchley RT).
Results:
1 Hugo Humphries (Leeds University CC) 2:14:03
2 Lee Desborough (St Ives CC) @ same time
3 Russell Ford (Glade CC) @ 3 seconds
4 Ian Franklin (PCH UK RT) @ 19 seconds
5 Lee Rowe (Finchley RT) @ same time
6 James Jobber (Colchester Rovers CC) @ same time
7 Edward Ashby (Private Member) @ same time
8 Ben Lewis (Finsbury Park) @ same time
9 Daniel Crawley (PCH UK RT) @ same time
10 Steve Hurrell (Strada Sport) @ same time
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.
