Location: Sudbury, Suffolk
Event: 25 March 2012
Report: Snowdon Sports

STEALING away from the pack on the finishing hill, Colin Bailey (North Road CC) celebrated his first win since his return to the sport last year in Braintree Velo’s 54-mile Spring Road Race at Sudbury, Suffolk.

Ninth in the same event 12 months earlier after a nine-year break, 30-year-old Bailey crossed the line a few lengths clear of Tom Stephenson (Colchester Rovers CC) and Wayne Maguire (PCH).

A cold and misty start to the race saw a number of early attacks, primarily from the CC Cambridge contingent, before two riders broke away, but the gap to the bunch never extended much beyond 20 seconds before the field regrouped with around 10 miles to go.

“The event was quite controlled really,” said Bailey, from St Albans, whose last win was back in 2000. “The attacks began again with a mile or so to go, and when we took the left hand turn on to the hill I decided to go from there and luckily I held on. It was good.

“I got the bug to get back into it and did a bit of racing last year, and hopefully now I can go on and win a few more.”

Results:

1 Colin Bailey (North Road CC)
2 Tom Stephenson (Colchester Rovers CC)
3 Wayne Maguire (PCH UK)
4 Peter Kirwan (CC Cambridge)
5 Graham Colins (Ipswich BC)
6 Nick White (East London Velo)
7 Ben Wright (VC Revolution)
8 Edward Farnell (Cambridge CC)
9 Clive Richardson (Chelmer CC)
10 Stuart Clarke (Chelmer CC)

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.