Prologue:
With no TT bikes allowed, the prologue was more a test of raw power than anything else. Angus’ build is not suited to such events, and my legs hadn’t experienced racing in over a year, so we eagerly awaited to see what it would be like. Angus went so far as to oil up his legs for added speed: Noah and I informed him that he looked like a tool, but the joke was on us since he was the fastest OUCC rider…

The standings saw Angus 5:57, me 6:06 and Noah 6:17. The stage was won in a monster time of 5:33!

Stage 2:
After a few hours of recovery shakes and stretching, it was time for the first real road stage. This was an unpleasantly hilly course, with plenty of KOM points available. The stage started…badly, since it hailed on us for about 20 minutes before weather more befitting of the end of April finally arrived. Angus proceeded to attack up the climb immediately, and (to absolutely no-one’s surprise) found himself the fastest climber. This was bad news for the more gravitationally-challenged of us in the bunch, and Noah and I suffered like dogs for the first hour to stay with his pace. Noah was dropped on the 3rd ascent of the climb unfortunately, and got to channel his inner Kittel by riding in the grupetto.

On the 5th ascent, my legs started to feel a bit better. Up front, Nairo Fisk-tana continued his assault on gravity by getting in the (race-winning) break over the top of the climb (therefore clinching the KOM jersey for the day) before immediately puncturing. The pace was therefore less infernal up the hill and so I honoured Angus’ memory by attacking over the summit on the final ascent to try and bridge to riders up the road. I attacked again with 3km to go and managed to get a decent gap before starting to cramp, an issue that continued to plague me into the reduced bunch finish where I rolled home mid-pack. The stage was won solo by Luke Souter, who also won Banbury Star solo last year. He therefore took themaillot jaune, and Angus was awarded the King of the Mountains prize for the stage.

Stage 3:
The following morning saw us tackle a 100km rolling stage through some really rather sketchy roads. The race organisers made the questionable decision to give Richard Fisk-renque an actual physical KOM jersey to prance around in, which helped to cement his status as a Big Name On Circuit. Angus therefore commandeered quite a lot of respect in the bunch, which meant that his domestiques actually had to make appearances at the front of the bunch…

The peloton was shattered further by another crash 10k up the road, leaving Angus clear of the field in a strong break of 5. This allowed him to mop up the remaining KOM points, clinching the jersey 23 points clear of his nearest competitor. To add to this achievement, he suffered in the break to cling on for 4th on the stage, putting out nearly 300W normalised for the entire stage! Angus therefore got to take the jersey home, along with £90 prize money, which nearly pays for the tub that he punctured. Expect to see it at every social from now on.