The Imperial Winter Series never gets cancelled, not if legendary 50’s professional racer and now organiser Doug Collins and his son Richard have anything to do with it.  So I wasn’t surprised to turn up on a frosty but sunny winter’s day to find them shovelling ice off the circuit so we could race.
Sat 19th December was the 3rd round of the popular winter series, the conditions had reduced the elite race to 27 riders hardmen, the 3rds and 4th categories having raced earlier.
During the warm up I had to swerve around some ice patches and cones, which marked out the worst ice on the circuits edges. I also noticed my cycle shoe cleats were very worn out. Luckily, Monica had come to support me and brought her cycle shoes so I ventured into a bit of ‘cross dressing’ and squeezed into them as they were a painful two sizes too small!
The race was fast from the start as riders were keen to get warmed up in the cold conditions. I attacked several times and eventually around midway through the race was successful in opening up a decent gap on the bunch.
 I was joined by promising junior Felix English (Pearson Cycles).  We worked well together sharing turns at the front, English doing the long flat and I the hill (letting an ‘old hand’ do the hill something wrong there!!).
 

The gap reached a maximum of 20 seconds before we were finally caught by a hard chasing bunch with strong riders and overall contenders Henry Furniss (WyndyMilla) , Harry Bulstrod (DH Cyclesport) and Jason Edwards (VC Meudon) not wanting to let us get away.
With 3 laps remaining three riders were allowed to escape from the field the main contenders marked each other closely.  But they were never allowed to get too far. 
On the final lap I was positioned well for the sprint finish. With 350 meters to go Henry Furniss took up the sprint early, I was on his wheel so was able to slipstream behind him.  With 250m I came off his wheel and I kicked hard, finishing strongly, I past the remaining escapees within meters of the finish line. However, Felix English crossed the line just ahead of me to take the win with me the runner up.