ILE ambassador Sinead takes on the Elites

Race report: Shrewsbury Grand Prix by sineadburke This Sunday I had the opportunity to race the Shrewsbury Grand Prix, an event that has returned to Shrewsbury after a 20 year break thanks to the work of Paramount CRT and the Shropshire Council. The race is a town centre crit, a fast-paced and exciting type of racing that takes place on a short circuit of closed roads, over a specific time - in our case, 40 minutes plus 5 laps. Being in Shrewsbury, it was quite a way to travel from Yorkshire. Luckily, my team-mate Alison's parents live nearby and kindly agreed to look after us for the weekend, so we travelled down on Saturday afternoon. There would be 3 of the PH women racing this week; Natalie, Alison and myself. How many wheels can you fit in a van? This would be our first experience of a town centre crit, so we took every opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the circuit. Arriving on Saturday gave us chance to walk around on Saturday evening, before it got busier on Sunday. The circuit was half mile loop of tight corners and winding roads, with the added complication of cobbles to contend with. There were 7 corners in total, so you never really get a break from concentrating. Certainly not an easy course for your first go! Just to make us even more nervous, we'd be racing with Olympic gold medallist, world champion and Great Britain/Wiggle Honda team member Joanna Rowsell, amongst a few others. No pressure! Check out that corner - tight, cobbled bottleneck. Eeek! Quicker than we knew it, Sunday arrived and we were lining up to start. We'd been lucky with the weather, despite forecasts of heavy rain (which would make the cobbles very slippy) it had stayed dry all day. Unluckily, however, we did one too many practice laps and managed to be right at the back of the group for the start. This is the worst way to start a crit, as it's difficult to move up and you're likely to miss the crucial break. Oops! Lesson learnt for next time. The first lap was a promenade lap, meaning we rode round slowly and waved at the crowd - and what a crowd! The event organisers had worked hard to promote the event and it was 3-4 people deep in places, which made it very exciting. I managed to (slowly) move up a few places during this lap, but was still way too far back to be comfortable. On the start line, all wearing our new glasses - thanks to Ilkley Cycles :) As predicted, when the race started, we had no chance of being in that front group. The first 10 minutes of a crit like that are always brutal, by the time I had chance to think again (instead of just OUCH), we'd lost Nat. I wasn't going to give up though, I still had Alison with me and we decided the best plan was just to catch as many riders as possible. Setting off. Look at the crowds! We soon formed a group of 5 strong riders; Ruth Taylor (Manchester Wheelers), Gina Riley (Chester RC), Victoria Grimmer (Stan Cycles), Alison and myself. Thanks to the commentator, we knew we were battling it out for 10th place - meaning there were 9 riders in front of our chasing group. As it turns out, there had been a break of 4 riders from the front group; Joanna Rowsell (Wiggle Honda), Harriet Owen (Matrix Fitness-Vulpine), Lydia Gurley (Merlin Cycles) and Brit Tate, a friend and member of local rival team GB Cycles. Alison and me putting in some effort over the cobbles That break group caught us up on their final corner before the sprint finish, there were a few panicked moments as they had to overtake our group on probably the worst corner of the circuit. Thankfully though, they all made it around safely, and we were there to see Brit put in an awesome sprint to take 1st place! We still had a lap left to race though, and it was elbows out as we eyed each other up for 10th place. Unfortunately there was some confusion with the finished riders, which caused a big split and ended up with me taking the tricky, uphill left hander onto Cross Hill with my knee against the curb. Oops again! Unfortunately, I dropped my chain and lost any chance of contending that 10th place. Congrats to Gina Riley on her excellent placing after coming back from illness :) In the end, Alison took 13th and I took 14th, which we're very pleased with for our first elite crit. Nat had more contact lens malfunctions and had to retire. It was worth going just for the atmosphere, plus seeing Brit take the biggest win of her career. We may ride for different teams, but we did a fair few rides together over the winter and I'm so happy for her :D Massive thanks to all involved in running such a brilliant event, especially to all the brilliant marshals who did a fab job of keeping the course safe for us and also to anybody who came out to support the race. Hope we put on a good show! For more info on the Shrewsbury Grand Prix, check out their website here:http://www.shrewsburygrandprix.co.uk/