One of the regions finest road races, the Banbury Star Road Race. Formerly known as the Morgan Ashurst Road Race, the race takes riders around 3 lap 72km course which tackles the infamous Knowle Hill. Starting in Drayton, Banbury, the race heads out towards Warwick along the B4100. It turns left at the MOD camp to climb Knowle Hill, through Edge Hill village then soon after joining the A422 the route then turns left to Horley and back to the B4100 where the finish line is, just past the village.
The course for the race on Sunday 3rd of June was tough, the race comprised of 3 laps of this course. It started with a couple of miles if undulating "A" road, then it turned left onto a quieter county lane, this led the race onto the toughest part of the course a 1.5 kilometre hill called Knowle Hill which averaged 14% throughout, at the top it was about 3 miles to the finish through quiet country villages, with a short but steep climb before the finish.
The main bunch of the race stayed together until the first ascent of Knowle hill where many people struggled and dropped back, Will stayed with the top ten until about 50 meters to go of the hill where he lost some ground and had to spend a couple miles catching the leading 5 up with his group of about 8. The first group which he was in where then caught by the second group on the road who had been dropped on the hill so the bunch was about 30 riders large now. At the second ascent of the hill more people were getting dropped until at the top there were only about 20 riders left contesting the win, Will stayed in the top 20 throughout. Approaching the finish Will was lying about 4th back in the first group, going up the final short climb Will was in a very low gear which made him reduce his cadence and drop his speed this made Will about sixth in the group going into the last 20 metres, at the finish Will was caught by another rider so had to settle for seventh in the end.
Finished first junior (prize of £25) and seventh overall. Will was glad to have got a good result but slightly annoyed that he chose the wrong gear for the final hill as he could have carried enough speed for second or third. Finishing about a metre behind third.
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