Slippery Corners & Close Calls | Army Crit Racing in the Rain

Back outside and into the action – this time at the final round of the Army Cycling Road Race Series. Held at Colchester’s cycle track, this crit was 45 minutes plus 3 laps on a wet and technical 1-mile circuit. With around 25 riders on the start line and the weather making conditions tricky, this one was always going to be unpredictable.

Join me as I line up in the B Category race, representing the Infantry, and take on fast corners, tough tactics, and plenty of rain.

📍 Race: Army Cycling Road Race Series – Final Round
🚴‍♂️ Category: B Cat
🌧️ Conditions: Wet / technical circuit

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So, welcome back to the channel. Uh, something a little bit different today. I’ve actually ventured outside uh to do some real racing. Uh, so this is the final round of the Army Road Race Series. Uh, it’s going to be held at Colchester Cycle Track. The format for this one is about 45 minutes uh plus three laps. The circuit itself is about a mile long. So now the conditions on the day were absolutely terrible. Uh but credit to the organizers. Uh they managed to kind of find a safe window for us to get some racing. Uh so I was in the B category race uh representing the infantry and we had roughly about 25 uh riders uh lining up on the start line. Uh and after the way some of our races have gone this season, honestly, uh my main goal here is just to finish the race. So enjoy. So as the racing starts then uh you will see a half naked man on the right there. Uh that’s Will the race organizer. Uh he came out in shorts, flip flops, and swimming goggles just to kind of lighten the mood a little bit for the bad weather we’ve had. Great sport. So this here is just the neutralized lap. Um there is one rider who’s at the front who’s been uh told to dictate the pace. Uh and these can be good for for us to if you haven’t had the chance to go around is uh to try and get a good sighting lap in. But you can already see uh in some places there’s uh there’s quite a bit of standing water and other places are starting to dry out. [Music] So because of the camber on the track, uh what I am noticing is kind of the right hand side of the track is a little bit drier than others. Um and that’s uh that’s pretty much where I want to try and uh position myself for majority of the day. Uh if if we don’t dry the track out by riding on it. This was probably the quickest part of the track really. Um there is uh pretty honking side wind. Um and then because of this uh corner, everyone took it. You see the water already. Everyone took it quite sensibly. Um throughout the race, we were pretty much sprinting out of this corner to get back on because uh as you can see, we’re coming up again to a uh two pretty technical corners. So, you still got right even though we’re on a neutralized lap, riders are still jostling for position and moving theirel up because as soon as we cross the start finish line, um we’re going to be racing. And this is uh this is quite a tight corner this. So, you see some people are pedaling through it. Um this is uh this is the corner that I had a pedal strike on. So, maybe I couldn’t. And then as we turn this one, this is a flatout headwind. Um it kind of felt at times that we were coming almost to a dead stop um because it was so strong the headwind. Uh so for me the the idea is to kind of keep tucked in and um and make sure I’m behind someone. You see we went from like 22 mph straight down to 17 mph around the final corner and then there’s a big long straight to the finish line. Um, and you can see the track’s still pretty wet. There is still some standing water. So later on in the race, this could be uh pretty telling. And then there see puddles there. So for the sprint could be a little bit nervy later on. And then as we cross the start finish line now, we’re now racing. So we’ve now got the ability to race and attack and pass each other. So this is a pretty well represented race. Um, even with the bad weather to have 25 radars in it. Um, we’ve got a lot of uh Royal Engineers, a guy in front of Royal Engineer. Um, we’ve got a lot of Remy in this and uh quite a lot of PT core. If you see any of the red jerseys, the infantry raiders, I think we had four or five uh in uh in this group. I said before, this is the the kind of the fastest part of the track. And uh straight away we we kind of we do get strung out a little bit, but I think everyone’s still quite nervous at this point because of the how wet the track is. So there’s no um there’s no big attacks or anything at this stage. [Music] And although we did have that hair pin on the last uh corner, this is kind of the most technical part of the track. And you can still see there’s puddles. And as we turn this corner, we are pretty much powering out of that corner to get in a good position um before we hit the uh the really two sharp turns. And you can see I was pumping out 900 watts at one point there just to try and get back onto the back of people’s wheels. So, it took a few laps, but I kind of determined that being on the right hand side of the track is the way to go. Um, because as you come around this corner, you see there was slamming on the brakes because we break checking each other all day really with the wet. Um, and then as you turn this corner and you into the headwind, um, it dawned on me as we went as we would turn the final corner um, to go down the straight. If you’re on the left hand side, then you’ve just got a crosswind hitting you. So, ideally, um it’s probably better to be on the right hand side of the track. Uh so, even though you’re getting the crosswind’s still coming across, you’ve got a little bit of shelter from uh the riders to the left of you. So, right now I’m kind of getting battered by a side wind. Um, and I’m in 50 mil wheels. Uh, so are a lot of people. So, we were warned off before just give each other a little bit more space because of the crosswind. Uh, someone in the earlier race, uh, looked like he had 80 mil wheels on and, uh, I don’t know how he managed to keep it upright cuz this wind is pretty strong. I think that first lap um, wasn’t as fiery as I was expecting. Uh, but we did notice that um the pace did kind of pick up. I’ll give everyone a bit of uh a bit of chops on this because the bike handling was was brilliant. Um was yes, there was a few break checks and stuff like that, but we pretty much kept it together for almost 90% of the race as a as a kind of large cohort like this uh without any major incidents. It was a few mechanicals and a puncher um but they can’t be helped. Uh but the rest of it, especially in this bad conditions, everyone kind of kept it upright. You see on the left there, we got Remy Riders moving their uh self up to the front. Um I don’t know whether this is for an attack or just want to be in a better position cuz we’re not as close as we normally would be, but we are pumping out some watts here. I’m doing like over 800 watts and they know we’re going to be sprinting out of the next corner. Um so we just got to be in a good position. So, unfortunately, that’s where the race footage ends. Um, my front camera stopped recording after about 5 minutes. And while the rear camera kept rolling, I didn’t think anyone would want to sit through an hour of just uh watching my back wheel. But here’s how the race played out then. Uh, so it’s starting off fairly steady, probably because of the terrible conditions. uh the PT core who really stepped up this uh season uh kind of trying to control the race early and even sent a rider up the road. So I chased that move down uh which kind of cost me a couple of laps in recovery. Uh the tactics were clearly uh aimed at wearing down both the infantry and the rei. The course itself was quite technical, right? A few corners uh had people on the brakes hard. Uh, and I even managed to scrape my new Garmin uh, rally pedals. I was trying to pedal around a corner. Um, which actually sent my back wheel sliding. Uh, but luckily I held it. Um, later in the racing, uh, I got caught out when another rider’s mechanical kind of caused a split and I found myself off the back uh, by by about half a lap. But I dug deep uh, and and did manage to kind of bridge back onto the main bunch. Uh but it definitely took a little bit out of me from there. Then uh it was just about surviving. So I say tucked in uh out of the wind and in the last lap I tried to move into a decent position. Uh but almost immediately I was swamped and boxed in. Uh and by the time we kind of hit the final corner for the sprint, I was way too far back to contest anything. And I did roll in at uh 17th out of 25. So, not the result I wanted, but given what my main goal was at the start, which was just to finish, I’ll take it. Um, and the highlight really, uh, was seeing a teammate, uh, Russ, uh, put in a brilliant ride and grab third for the infantry. So, that’s the Army Road race series done. Uh, but in two weeks, uh, we’ll be racing in the support race for the Intercore Championships in Bath, uh, which will be my last outdoor race this season. So, stick around. Uh, hit the like button. Uh, if you’ve enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe. Uh, and don’t miss that one. Bye-bye.