Wyndymilla’s Bedford 3 Day

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Interestingly Stage 2 was a Team Time Trial. I arrived in good time for the morning’s nine kilometer team time trial. A tired looking Graham Hill, Catherine’s other half, was already working on the bikes and told me, “I’m exhausted, we stayed over at a local hotel but I didn’t finish getting the team bikes ready till gone 9pm. I washed all six bikes, changed cassettes and pumped up the tyres.” You know what they say, “behind every great women’s team…” I was glad to have got off lightly, having driven back home to London!

As the girls set off, they didn’t have a following team car, so I rode behind the team as ‘following bike’ shouting encouragement, mostly along the lines of “faster, faster”. The girls finished together in a time of 10 minutes 20 seconds but conceded over 1 minute to the eventual winners, Team Breast Cancer Care.

I spoke to Julie Granshaw on her warm down and she seemed content with the ride, saying “I think it went well. We pretty much stayed together, apart from when Emily sprinted up the climb and gapped us, but she’s super strong! What can you do?”

In the afternoon was the second road stage, Stage 3, a 80km road race on the Keysoe Circuit. This circuit, to be completed 5 times, was mostly flat apart from Mill Hill, best described as a bit of a leg breaker! A lead group of 12 developed around half way, and they sprinted it out for the win. The Wyndymilla team all finished safely in the main bunch around a minute behind.

The third day took place at the Millbrook Test Track and Stage 4 featured an Individual Time Trial. The individual time trial was two laps of the bowl-like circuit, covering 8km.

Monica was pleased with her performance, she told me, “I went as hard as I could. My legs were pretty sore from the previous day’s racing. I started off slowly but got faster”.

Emily showed her strength with the best placing in the team of 20th overall, only 10 seconds down on the eventual stage winner, Claire Galloway of the Breast Cancer Care Cycling Team.

Stage 5 was a road race at the Millbrook Circuit. It was the final stage of the weekend and a brutally hard 80km road race, including 9 laps of an alpine like climb, with steep gradients of 14%. The girls, exhausted from 3 days of hard racing, all finished. Emily again proved the strongest finishing in the lead group, but not quite having the legs to compete in the bunch sprint.

Monica finished the race with teammate Lisa Gunn in a small group of riders. She told me about the weekend, “I’ve enjoyed riding with my team and racing for three days. But it’s tough competing with these twenty year olds! They’re so strong, especially on the climbs. I can’t wait to get back to doing some short circuit races! Hopefully I’ll be a bit faster too – when I’ve recovered!”

You can follow the girls’ season via the Wyndymilla Girls Blog and find out more about them at the Wyndymilla Women’s Team Website.

Full race results for the Bedford 3 Day can be found here on the British Cycling website.

Vince has uploaded a selection of his photos from the Bedford 3-Day over the next few pages.

If you would like to submit a similar feature about your team or event then please email it to Simon@handsling.com or Paul@handsling.com.

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