Back to Hillyfields in Colchester again, in spite of overnight rain it was extraordinarily dry. The Amis Velo crew had done an amazing in clearing the woodland sections and as a consequence the course was really quick with my Garmin registering 47.9kph as my top speed. Front row again but last to be called which put me straight into a somewhat overgrown line but managed to hold position even as Dave C. sensibly pushed me into the long grass as we made the first turn and ride up the steep bank that's such a feature of the course. Slotted in behind him but his technical woodland riding is not so strong and a gap appeared up to Jimmy Pipper, Richard Muchmore and Steve Mahon. Further into the woodland I managed to squeeze past and then put in a big effort to close the gap to the leading 3. Just tacked on as we hit the steep climb out of the bottom corner. The course was so dry that this was consistently ridable but Steve made an uncharacteristic error, stalling on the climb and I was able to take a novel line and get past. Unfortunately i couldn't close the resultant gap to Jimmy and Richard and they started to get away a bit in spite me giving it everything. The only plus was that I was doing similar damage to Steve who was trying to chase. In retrospect I probably went a bit too hard for too long at this point and started to pay. About 1/2 way through Jimmy punctured and I passed him in the pits, but 2nd place wasn't going to last long and Jimmy managed to drag Dave and Steve back up to me for good measure. Dave made it past on one of the open sections and I wasn't able to keep his wheel but still kept pulling him back of the technical which is pretty much how it stayed to the end. I managed to run an almost faultless race but blotted my copybook right near the end, I think catching a tub sidewall coming out of one the ditches whilst overtaking a back marker, instant deflation but it was rear so I was able to nurse it to the finish and had just enough time in hand to keep Steve at bay.
Other than Jimmy and Richard, who seem to be ahead of the rest of the field, there seems to be a very similar level of ability with the next 10 places being anybodies. 1 small mistake and you're well down the field, it's certainly not an unpressured environment.
