First month of racing in 2024

My road racing started on the 9th of March where I headed over to the MK bowl to do a National B crit. Wasn't sure how the legs were going to be having not raced yet and was hopeful I was going to find my winter training paying off. It was a frustrating race as I had no teammates in a race where ride revolution had a quarter of the field so ended up getting worked over and missing the eventual wining move however put in a decent sprint to get 4th which was a decent start to the year and most important my legs were feeling good. Then the week after that I did the same race again with a similar situation so could only manage 5th but with short crit races not being my speciality I was pleased with how these first races had gone.

My next race was meant to be the Evesham Vale Nat B however that was out to an end when the race was cancelled on the day due to rain so next up was the Peaks 2 Day. This is a race I have wanted to do for many years now with it being super suited to me as a rider so is a great opportunity for me to get a good result in a very high quality field. First day did not go to plan though as super strong crosswind and very poor positioning on my end meant I was quickly caught out in a big split so instantly GC hopes and stage result was out the window. The second day started off with a hill climb up Holme Moss but again with extremely strong headwind. I did as best I could but with no real reason mentally to try to gain time due to being so far back and struggling to put out power in the strong wind I only managed 24th. Then moving onto the last stage I was eager for a good result and went in thinking it was a brand new race. A move quickly went away with some very strong guys which I hoped would come back but knew was unlikely. Then going up the main climb with a crosswind the group split just in front of me and having just attacked I hesitated and didn't have the legs to close the gap. This lead to me and a group of 4 others having to chase for a whole lap before I jumped out the group to close the gap which I am glad I did as I don't think the others made it back to the peloton. Then I did as best I could but already being very fatigued from the effort and with my front derailleur dropping so it was rubbing on the chainring I rolled in 14th which although its not what I came for I knew the legs were there so with less mistakes it would of been a different story.

My final race in March was the Ras Mumhan, a 4 day 5 stage race, over in Ireland where I was guesting for Halesowen academy. The first day had a TTT where we put in a strong performance as a team to come 17th but only 30 seconds behind the leaders so did what we needed to do. The evening stage was quite uneventful for me but rolled in 20th to round off a solids first day. The second stage was the first of the hilly stages so was looking forward to it. Just after the first category climb a break of around 12 formed which I and 2 other bridged over to which ended up being the winning break. However looking around the group I could see nearly every team had a teammate with trinity having 3 and then as another group caught us things only got worse for me as this caused attacks to start going and really overworked me as I had to close most of the attacks down until I couldn't anymore and missed the break form the break. This led to me losing more time to the main gc guys as I came in 20th. Stage 3 was the main mountain day so we were confident a break was going to win it so in the early part of the race I was attacking to try to get away but with the speed so high nothing was going. After positioning well going into all the climbs to avoid getting caught in splits it was all together going into the final climb however the rain and the long descent going into it caused me to become really cold and I just couldn't warm up so just couldn't go with the very front of the race when I needed to so only came in 14th in a stage that I was targeting from the start so was disappointed that something as simple as clothing made me lose out on a potential top 10 to move me up on GC. Then the final stage was flat and fast around a town centre circuit where I just tried to stay out of trouble and get home which i did and manged to move up to 14th on GC and 6th in the youth classification to round off a decent week where I am still getting used to riding with the top domestic riders in the sport after coming from juniors.