Ras de
Cymru 1981
The club was having a great year, with 6 riders of 1st. category, who
would be Elite category by today's standards; the biggest race in Wales
at the time became a major target for us. There would be a GB, Scotland,
Ireland Dutch and Belgian team and as John Clewarth had just ridden several
races for GB including the "Sealink" and Keith Jones and Russell
Harrington were on the fringes. Gordon Smith [Clocky] Phil Evans [Ivor]
and myself had all had had plenty of top 6 finishes and we knew we could
challenge in all the Categories.
We decided that as the race was for 4-man teams Pete Lewis [pedro]
and Gary Thistlethwaite. This would make up the numbers for a 2 team
attack.
The race was 5 stages over 4 days based around Swansea .The Prologue
held on the Friday night of the May Bank Holiday weekend was a 3 mile
hill climb with riders advised to use 39 X 21. Clewy romped away with
it, Keith and Clocky finishing in the top 10, what a start!
With Clewy in Yellow we started Stage2 which was over a big loop around
the Gower peninsula then several laps of a finishing circuit about 100
miles. We hit the first climb at quite a pace as is often the case in
a stage race, there are some "excited" legs early doors, over
the top Pedro, riding his first big event after a diet of 3/J and 2/3
races came up to me and asked "When do they Ease?" after a
suitable period of choking on the laughter, I had to inform him that
they didn't!! To which he slinked to the back never to be seen again.
The race split into 3 groups with only Ivor in the winning group, he
was 2nd behind Phil Galloway. We lost the jersey, but Keith was leading
the Points sponsored by Sprint biscuits-more later, John the Mountains
[what else- if you ever rode with him!!
That night we had a huge Chinese meal to celebrate our impending success.
Day 3 dawned, it was p*ssing down , no, it was a torrential storm ,
So dark all the race vehicles had headlights on at 10 in the morning.
The race was ten laps of a 5 mile circuit on the outskirts of Swansea,
the roads were busy and greasy. The bunch stayed together and the only
thing of note was when Clewy punctured with 15 to go, I called up Pedro
and This to help me to help John. We waited for John and after a couple
of turns Pedro disappeared and sat on!! We chased for over 10 miles
and got back with a mile to go so sat out the sprint, by then though
10 riders had got away, Clocky and Russ were up there, the lassifications
were unaltered . The afternoon Stage was a 30 mile crit in the Town
centre, I got the "Knock" ate 10 of the disgusting cardboard
and frothy cheesy sh**e Sprint Biscuits which after a further lap and
a hamburger [have you ever had the knock in a race?] I puked the lot
on some South Walian who had the misfortune to be behind me.
Clocky and Clewy were in the winning break Gordon won the gallop, Steve
Wallington was also in the group and moved into Yellow, John 2nd and
Gordon was 4th overall.
The rest of us missed the move but still held respectable overall positions.
The first prize for the crit was a rocking chair valued at £90,
Gordon naturally put his name on it as his , for when we did the winnings
split .
The last day was a huge loop out over the Brecon Beacons and back over
the Black Mountain, this being like the Nant-y-garth followed by the
Horseshoe.
We were defending two jerseys and a chance of the overall and the team,
John got both the early mountains sprints and I led Keith out to take
the Sprint in Brecon , Gordon punctured so Russ Phil and I waited and
got him back in a few miles at no real effort . Keith had to get some
points in the final Sprint in Rhayader to clinch his win, so we decided
to get "up the road" , My take was more that a bit of a lead
at the bottom of the Black Mountain would see me finish top 20 overall
so Keith. This and I took off with ultimately [like some joke] a Scot
an Irishman and Englishman for company. I led out for the Sprint and
Jonesy whupped ass, but then decided to drop back with This to assist
JC and the Clock, I still had my own agenda and pressed on with the
other 3 . We got caught and dropped by what was to be the winning break
containing JC, Russ and the Clock just before the top and after a daredevil
descent the group reformed. Clewy punctured and we all [the Deeside]
waited , by the time we had got back to the group Wallington and a couple
of Belgians had gone, we chased 25 miles into a block headwind with
no assistance from anyone , and held the break at 30 seconds to the
line , Russ won the group gallop to take 4th on the stage. Final result
Clewarth 2nd and K.O.M. , Gordon 4th., Keith winner of the Sprint Biscuit
[the thought still makes me heave!] Points. Russell 8th and Deeside
Olympic first team. We had won around £800 quite a weekend. We
stopped at a cafe on the way home with everyone eager to get their share.
The split was £125 each for the 6 first cats and £50 towards
gas. There were a few prizes which were taken instead of cash, the value
usually being estimated downwards for the prize list, but in the case
of the rocking chair , we were in no doubt of it's value- £90
I remember took a stopwatch which was subsequently used for club 10's
and Keith had a big box of Sprint biscuits valued and the programme
at £25 plus a load of half price voucher , we decided they had
no value for the split and binned the lot !! Pedro and Thiss each having
won a huge amount of experience that we felt was beyond price !!
Post-script: The next week Gordon saw the rocking chair in MFI for
£29.95 and demanded a redistribution of wealth, we naturally rushed
to hand over our share .... NOT