News – Ride London Youth GP

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Podium and best team award for Yorkshire Region who were invited to the Youth Races at the Ride London Grand Prix on Saturday

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News – Ride London Youth GP

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A podium and best team for the boys ensured the Youth Races at the Ride London Grand Prix on Saturday were a great experience for all eight riders and some good practice for the next Yorkshire Youth outing – the UK School Games in Manchester at the start of September

For the girl’s team, there was
• Jayti Hine
• Anna Doherty
• Libby Denby
• Sophie Thackray

and for the boys, there is so much strength in depth at the moment in Yorkshire, they have enough good riders to be able to field two teams. Alas, they had to only choose one so went with:
• Harry Hardcastle
• Rob Gray
• Tom Pidcock
• Rob Scott

After meeting up at Woodall, they travelled to London in a blitz of excitement and anticipation at what lay ahead. What lay ahead was battle royale on the Mall, past the Queen’s place and back round via Birdcage walk and Horse guards Parade.

First off were the girls. There were attacks and crashes a plenty. Sophie was caught up in one of the crashes but didn’t come down so was able to continue, although spent the whole race chasing, thinking of nothing but of the need to finish to get points for the team competition.

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Pic: The girls before the start: Jayti, Anna, Sophie and Libby

Meanwhile Jayti, Anna and Libby were in the thick of the action hiding in the wheels, fighting for position and holding their own with all three finishing in the front group. A good solid performance by all with Jayti their best placed rider in 15th with Libby in 22nd just ahead of Anna in 25th.

Sophie came in 35th. This was all good enough for 7th best team. A solid winter’s training at the legendary “Yorkshire School of Racing” and all these riders will be even better next year.

At 7 pm and the boys race started. Involving a road full of teenage boys this race was never going to be dull – and so it proved. Harry jumped as soon as the race started and was quickly joined by a rider from down South. They got a good gap and were soon ten seconds up with the rest of the team busily chasing down anyone who tried to bridge – and there were many.

Eventually the constant aggression from the bunch meant that the two out front were caught after a couple of laps but as soon as they came back, another move went – although interestingly every one of the moves seemed to contain only two riders!

Our lads were in everything and just as they had planned, were taking it in terms to either get in a break or chase one down if they weren’t in it. Despite the incessant attacking it always looked like it was going to end in a bunch kick. Coming into the last corner, Tom was 7th and Harry was even further back – evidence of the high speed of the last few km.

But it’s a long way down The Mall and even further when it’s a headwind. The London team were desperate to win and sacrificed a man to lead out their star rider Ethan Hayter. Ethan took the win with Tom and Harry coming up fast to claim 3rd and 4th while Alex Jollife from the South team nabbed 2nd on the line from Tom.

The two Rob’s having worked like trojans all evening still had the strength to finish well up in 16th and 17th respectively. All this was easily good enough for Yorkshire to win the team prize, well ahead of the South East team.

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Tom (right) on the podium

 

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