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Les Ingman Memorial Road Race

Sunday's race started off with some energetic flurries of activity on the first lap which saw a group of four ride clear including Toby Neave. This group held a slender gap of 30 second, but were pulled back on the second lap. More attacks by riders followed with Henry Furniss, WyndyMilla, followed by Jake Martin, Pendradon with the most successful attempt, riding clear from Outwood village.

Their glory was short-lived as the key break formed on the 4th lap as the bunch thundered up the hill to Bletchingley with the bunch strung out up through Bletchingley Village High Street, the elastic finally snapped allowing 17 riders to go clear which included Matt Green, VL Technics, Chris Macnamara, Corley cycles, Ian Pain, Ben Jacobs, Stuart Spies, Mike Debney , from London Dynamo, Alan Ridler, Team Cycle Kingdom, Plus Gary Dodd & Andy Betts, La Fuga Sigma Sport, Andrew Dolan, Team Toachim, Andrew Colvin , Bigfoot, Dante Carpenter, Asfra Racing Team, Marcus Brueton, Norwood Paragon CC, James Jackson, RG Active RT, Jake Martin, Pendragon, Matthew Pilkington, Progressive Cycle Coaching .

After a bit of cajoling the group settled into a rhythm and worked fairly smoothly to open the gap on the tiring bunch. After 2 laps away the gap was approaching 2 minutes and growing. It was in the last 2 laps that the real attacks began. Ian Paine London Dynamo made the first move trying to ride away, quickly gaining 20 seconds. Matt Green jumped the group over the hill to Outwood to join Ian. The break became more animated with riders watching each other for the next move.

Three riders bit the bullet to chase on the approach to the small hill to catch up with Ian and Matt. Marcus Brueton not wanting to miss out also jumped across to this with Chris MacNamara on his wheel followed by the rest of the break.The The toughness of the course was now started to it's toll as tiring riders started letting wheels go, causing gaps to developed. With four riders pushing on ahead, Betts, Ridler & Carpenter forced the others to chase to stay in contention, going hard up the hill with Jackson, Brueton and Dodd in close pursuit, but it was only Dodd who made the gap to join his team-mate with the leaders.

The lead five swiftly pulled away with 1.5 laps to go as the chasers eventually re-grouped and began to work but their pursuit proved fruitless as they maid no impression on the leaders eventually finished 50 seconds behind the leaders. The leaders caught Green and Paine and reached the finish line en masse for a furious sprint where 2nd category Ridler out sprinted the others by a bike length giving him just enough time for his victory sulute for the win of his life Green 2nd and Macnamara 3rd. Promoting club, Norwood Paragon's Marcus Brueton lead in the chase group for 8th place.

Result

1 Allan Ridler Team Cycle Kingdom
2 Matt Green VL Technics
3 Chris Macnamara Team Corley Cervelo
4 Andy Betts La Fuga Sigma Sport
5 Gary Dodd La Fuga Sigma Sport
6 Dante Carpenter Asfra Racing Team
7 Ian Paine London Dynamo / Prologue
8 Marcus Brueton Norwood Paragon CC
9 James Jackson RG Active RT
10 Robert McCarthy Team Cycle Kingdon

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British Cycling would like to thank the organising team, officials and everyone else who helped promote this event. Our sport could not exist without the hundreds of people, many of them unpaid volunteers, who put in many hours of hard work running events, activities and clubs.