Opening yet another chapter in Hafren’s saga of sheared fixing bolts, at tonight’s BC event in Shrewsbury, it was Coe Jr’s turn to snap one, this time a seat post clamp. The Hafren boys turned to Dave Mellor, in their hour of need (10 minutes before the start), he generously loaned a rather shiny mountain bike quick release clamp which sufficed.
All four Hafren members (Max, George, Ian, and Mike) made it safely to the start line. The race started in the typical frantic Sundorne style with numerous early attacks testing legs, lungs and hearts of the peloton of 20 plus 3rd and 4th cat riders.
Nerves and adrenalin soon settled into a relaxed and good natured evening of racing.
Max was chomping at the bit to test his new wheels and attacked early stretching the field with George close on his wheel. The peloton gradually came back together. At this point Coe Snr found himself, as he puts it, accidentally breaking away in a solo effort, with George and Mike controlling the peloton from the front to see how long Coe Snr could sustain the breakaway. After an impressive 3 laps at the front, putting some daylight between him and the field, Coe Snr came to the unfortunate realisation that the previous night’s time trial had taken its toll, not to mention that he was without tt bike, helmet, skinsuit and oversocks.
After being swallowed back up by the chasing group, the race entered its final stages. With the pace now increasing, and Mike finding himself surprised to be in a good position, with two laps to go a hapless rabbit made a Tour-de- France-spectator-style charge onto the tarmac and straight under Filek’s fast approaching wheel. This caused a brief let up in the frantic pace as riders checked to make sure everything was ok.
The rabbit incident rattled Mike and he bottomed out on the last hairpin in an attempt to mimic his 2up partner’s epic highside earlier this season. This cost Mike a couple of precious places leaving the final hairpin into the last straight, but with adrenalin pumping and heart rate pipping 192, Mike fought back and out of the saddle managed to sprint to yet another superb top 10 finish.
Report courtesy of Filek et al …