No sooner than the dust had settled from round 1, we were back at our Darley home for Round 2 of the We Buy Cycle Crit league. 

 

 

In a slightly smaller field from Round 1, you’d be forgiven if you thought it would be easier to force a break. However despite numerous attempts during the 45mins, with 3 prime wattbombs thrown into the mix, no one was able to break the elastic which made for an exciting sprint line finish to settle the places. 

 

Taking the top spot in her first race was Eleina McFadden (Brother Onform) from returning fave Rebecca Woodvine (Paralloy RT) and reigning champ Abbie Taylor (Jadan Glasdon pb Vive le Velo mouthful)

 

 

The Open 4 followed a similar pattern to last week, with a cagey start, before a 2 man breakaway set the pace and were never caught. Will Thomson and George Simmutch went on to share the primes before the smallest of margins and space on the track separated them over the finish line. Fastest of the chasing bunch was Danny Coletrup to round out the podium

 

 

A 50 strong field lined up in the 34 race proving as popular as ever, with most teams in the region represented. Racing was exciting with breaks getting away and subsequently being lured back in. It was a great race to watch (and expertly captured by Triathlon Dan in his vlog, link below) 

 

In fact Dan was part of the winning break, however was not able to hold on leaving Kieran Friend to see if he keep the marauding pack at bay. In what proved a herculean effort, Kieran crossed the line with the pack literally 5 seconds behind, led by Paul Donald and Tom Harris. 

 

 

Prior to the Nat B kick off, Adam ‘creaky’ Kenway was spotted hobbling around the car park. He made a miraculous recovery to take the start line and was again part of the 12-man early break which proved the winning move. 

 

The break also included ‘Prime Hoover’ Ewan Mackie who now leads the sprinter cup after securing all three sprints and finishing third behind Kenway and Denholm Edwards

 

Our masters rides were treated to the best weather of the day and spent most of their hour long pain train in glorious sunshine. 

 

The reason for the pain train? Well that was down to Paul Dring, Darren Perry and Martin Nelson sneaking off the front, and staying away from the chasers to finish in that order.