Reading Cycling Club 3rd & 4th Cat Road Race, Sunday 25/5/25, with commentary !

Sunday 25th May 2025, Binfield UK
Categories: Open 3 / 4 (Regional B), distance 8 Laps 78km

there’s a fast descent on from car i can start judgment left and a fast down overhanging trees and racing great sunglasses on two three years that’s important got three uh this is my uh first road race of the year so I haven’t been racing much but yeah I was really really looking forward to that start yeah and I’m Emma i’m also with Reading uh Club i’ve been I lived in Reading for a few years but I’ve raced with them and I’m started racing last year and this was my third world race overall um and done a few races this year already uh cut free and uh yeah I was looking forward so we won the Yes yeah yeah so yeah I had I had the camera facing forwards uh so this is probably a lead out or the first uh lap so we’ve done eight laps that day uh you know I was pretty much conserving energy just sitting in the back uh saving stuff for uh the spring so that was my uh goal for the race i know it doesn’t sound very exciting but I knew that my legs were not very strong so this is this was my plan yeah and this is my camera from the back uh beneath my saddle and my plan was exactly the opposite of what Gary just said i was my plan was to be in the front try potentially to go in a move or at least uh bring back any moves if one went without any of us because we had a team of six there were also other uh couple of clubs with six people i think London Dynamo at five or six and Swindon at five or six so there was there was potential for a lot of team games to be played at the front and I wanted to be there uh also was there mainly with Alex and Ysef uh Ysef also said he wanted to potentially play similarly to Gary but uh then he ended up trying to go as well so yeah it was fun but I definitely wasn’t racing conservatively so here we are coming i think this is the first time up the hill by going into the hill yes exactly so this is lap one I think and as you can see I was there in the front uh The first couple of reps up the hill went fine actually as soon as the race started uh I made I made sure I was already up there from the neutral from the neutral zone because a few weeks back when leading the long line of a race I was too far back in the neutralized uh start and when the flag uh I was too back we were just react to anything that might have happened so this time I said okay I’m going to be up there just as close as possible to the car and I was I was you know there the fourth wheel um and then I come back to some there is a ride there he was uh just stands out for me is uh I don’t know his name um doesn’t race for any particular club I think is you can see him from footage he’s got a white TT suit uh on a white specialized and he is super strong throughout the race he’s always there trying to initiate moves of following I think he the entire race in P5 around there in the front all the time and uh he still despite spending so much energy he probably would have come top five or top 10 uh but he had a puncture in the last uh halfway through the last lap so it didn’t play out for the sprint but yeah I just he was so strong we tried to get more going together just nothing would go there you are you know this is me on the right hand side and uh with Louis in the middle um yeah you guys are chilling right there yeah just chilling chilling uh but yeah you know if I had better legs then I would probably be up front and that’s actually what I’ve done a year ago and only lasted five laps so I just completely focus on the fifth ascension of the car here so this year I decided to race differently and uh you know it paid out so I made it to to the finish i was um up there when on the um finish uh straight line uh but yeah we can talk about the finish a bit later um 42 42k an hour I think yeah I think I average 43 yeah yeah 34 yeah but some guys there definitely not uh you know engine wise they’re not 34 that’s for sure it’s just the points uh maybe they’re not they’re not able to progress because they haven’t achieved enough points but they’re definitely not necessarily free engine um yeah so how did you find the first few laps of the hill i think the second lap was maybe the fastest uh of the entire race how did you find I I found that Yeah it was hard because again a break was trying to get established but if you were inside the bunch I I found that the hill was doable like in the draft even if people were trying to stretch it out up front it was only until the end when like my legs were out a bit it was sliding back yeah i mean for me the cartisel was the hardest part as expected cuz people were trying to send it there and realistically this is pretty much the only time in the race where you could you know get a get a gap uh but yeah it wasn’t you know Yeah it wasn’t like too hard uh definitely uh first like four laps were intense and uh uh I was I wasn’t on the limit but I was loads but it noticed it notably slowed down from lap five so you know was yes it could be chilly and I just was having a chat with some guys on lap five six u but yeah definitely if you could survive us that probably last yeah and we saw that just earlier in the footage the start finish straight uh while here we are again turning towards the hill in the lap um we were free this was the fastest lap of the race and yeah so I was saying earlier the the start finish straight uh was very long stretch of road uh we’ll see later on in footage again and you could see far ahead and that was a good chance to move up the bunch uh on a couple of occasions I was maybe middle of the pack in on the hill then it would string out again in the downhill and then when it came again on the on the start finish straight uh because it was a headwind it would slow down a bit so it was a good chance to to move up and I think you can see in the footage uh when I do move up um because I have the camera underneath my bike and you can see a few people following me around and using me as a as a shield to kind of move up the bunch when it’s a bit less fast and uh because then normally against people will try and go after the the the first corner after the finish line with the left hand corner so we try to go again so here we go again yeah so this is end of the second lap and we here we come to the junction left turn and this is usually the people who try and speed it up again it’s interesting that my my tactics in how I approach the race was very very different to you because Yes yeah because I was sliding backwards on the party’s heel but I knew it’s okay as long as I don’t lose the contact with the punch because I’m descending down the church playing pretty fast and I was always making my positions up yes like and I was doing it without spending much energy uh uh and I knew that the bunch would slow down by the time we get to the uh motor away yes it always slow down there yeah so it was a kind of you know I didn’t see how you can actually get away from the punch because it goes very fast down to the sand very very fast even if you have a few seconds gap after you punch Yeah city catch you and then Yeah and then it just slows down it’s head blocked headwind they finish straight from the drag you uphill so it was pretty challenging day for to get away that’s Yeah it’s really hard [Applause] yes yeah a couple of people did try to launch it in the again close to the you know after the finish line into the corner uh I was under the wheel it was nice because I got uh I got quite on the limit in the first uh the first or second lap i got you know I I spent a lot of energy trying to close a couple of attacks and then it was nice because then I just shifting back into the bunch recovering again and then by the time you move up before the finish line into the left corner then I was ready again to follow the next few moves so yeah you see here Ysef in my in my rear rear cam and olives just behind and on a couple of occasions when I was at the front but just two guests to follow anything and a counter move would go they would follow so that was really good team play from us and uh when I saw them going it was really nice well it was good for me to know that I don’t have to follow that again and I can just let the wheel go and they are in the in the loop so it’s not my problem and the other teams would then pass me and follow and then I was able to just shuffle back in in bunch and recover and we did that on a couple of occasions there was one lap where Alex uh who was very light uh went up the hill and I think he crested the the hill uh first again I was kind of thereabouts and I just saw him go and not that I could have followed but Yes yes he went and as I said I I couldn’t really have followed him if I wanted to but yeah you see here this white guy this guy in the in the white he’s was really strong just going into the hill uh it’s also Tom who came fourth overall I think which is really impressive for a while he was dangling off the front um we tried to go on brakes but again nothing would go they just I think too many teams ourselves included that wanted to go in a breakaway and so everything Yeah I tried to portal a couple times but never succeeded it’s actually Yeah much much harder than you think because Yeah I know because uh like Yeah because people are attacking on that stretch of a road and it’s quite flat so I don’t know how fast we’re going but it could be up to 35 40 km maybe easily uh so yeah it requires some skills i think I need to practice a [Music] lot yeah I never tried i I saw you I think on a couple of times I I passed very close to you Rod but I I just decided not to even try the bottle but I had enough in my bottle but also I wasn’t sure of the catastrophe that I could have caused so yeah yeah there was a moment actually on like very first lap when Alex uh lost both of his bottles oh yeah and he was just you know surfing the pipes asking people if you can share drink basically but I think you you get in the race so yeah Louis had two boils and he passed one to the to Alex which is team work makes it great work yeah yeah he asked me too but I only had first I didn’t understand what he said because we were going too fast and then when I realized he was asking me for the bottle I said no I only have one uh We’re on the last lap okay so yeah it was get I mean people were definitely tired because plenty of attacks have been going but many people had also been sagging and they were waiting for their moments to pounce and it got really strung up on uh strung out on the on the hill on the last step of the hill this is me this is me going backwards i started the hill in third wheel and I ended up last now you should see yeah there was Yeah this is Louis’s wheel i was able to cling on to him as the last wheel this is the motto beating I was saying about whether to slow down again and here we were able to make up a few positions back and this is funny because there’s a moment here where Alex just looks at me he just turns around next to me looks at me doesn’t say anything i don’t say anything to him i give him like a little I don’t have it and uh and then he goes forward he he was he’s able to move up from there i don’t follow him i don’t know why i don’t I not I don’t follow him immediately and he ends up uh top like 15 or something and I end up 26 because he Yes exactly so this is from my view so you see I’m passing people but I’m not really making up many spaces while you’ll see here now in the footage Alex is in the main Yeah he’s that white helmet there it’s in so he started his sprint too early he said to me so that’s him then he fades here and gets passed um yeah so just earlier in the motion if I passed him if I followed him I would have been able to be more likely to see me there to the line um a bit further back so yeah I think you got top 20 yeah I finished 20 and uh yeah uh I was like fifth wheel with 500 m to go uh while Alex was third wheel but you went too early right first place yeah he went too early it was draggy sprint and then one of the guys sneled right in front of me and blew up with like 400 m to go yeah uh he left that sprint effort thank you for Yeah thank you for being with us for organizing yeah next year absolutely