Location: Ticknall, Derbyshire
Event: 26 August 2012
Report: Snowdon Sports
Leicester rider Leon Wright secured victory in the latest round of the EMEG Road Race Series, staged near Ticknall in Derbyshire on Sunday.
The 30-year-old Naked Bikes rider took victory ahead of Retro Bikes rival Geoff Beetham, while Paul Cox (unattached) completed the podium in third spot.
Wright has ridden all four events in the series, and was second in the second round in Nottinghamshire earlier this month.
“That kind of course suits my style as I’m quite light,” said Wright, who hit the front on an uphill run in to the finish.
“Cox attacked early on and I jumped on his wheel, but I wasn’t sure if we were a bit early to make it stick. But he’s a strong rider and was confident that if we kept the pressure up on the climbs we could stay away, and he was right.”
Three riders broke away on the first of four and a half laps of a hilly course, and gradually ground out a lead which by the line was around a minute and a half over the nearest of the chasing groups.
Two more riders did come across to make five, but two dropped back to leave a trio chasing victory.
Quite a few riders split off the front of the bunch in search of the leaders, and while they managed to stay clear of the bunch nobody else managed to bridge the gap to the three escapees.
The last of a series of four stand-alone events, the EMEG Series has proved popular and looks set to return next year, perhaps with points accrued to give an overall winner.
Results:
1 Leon Wright (Naked Bikes)
2 Geoff Beetham (Retro Bikes)
3 Paul Cox (unattached)
4 Chris Metcalfe (Charge Bikes)
5 Ian Russell (Newark Castle CC)
6 Andrew Wearing (Kenilworth Wheelers)
7 Alessandro Williams (Tunstall Wheelers)
8 Andrew Phiri (Bike Box Alan)
9 Will Glover (Sheffrec CC)
10 Adam Howells (Fred Williams Cycles)
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.
