Its been a few weeks since I last posted on my blog and a lot has happened during this time. I have been on another Mountivation Boot Camp, raced every Tuesday at the track league, and raced my first Road Race of the year.
Today (Sunday 26th Feb) I competed in the Clayton Velo Spring classic along with my Mountivation team mates. This was our debut outing as a team and we all had a great ride working well together. Matt Flynn and Tom Armstrong got in an early 3 man break and stayed out there for 6 laps!!! This was great to have Mountivation and Bioracer colours out in the front of the race for so long. After 6 laps they got reeled in, and shortly after the Elites caught our Junior group. The race picked up even more speed! A few more attacks went up the road but all came back fairly quickly. With 4 laps to go I was expecting something to go and and a break of 15 riders got a small advantage I knew I had to get across to this and when Dean Downing (of Rapha Condor Sharp) attacked to bridge across (with 3 to go) I jumped onto his wheel. This was exciting for me as I was racing with a rider I look up to and watch on the T.V! We were going full gas to catch the break and another Rapha and Herbalife rider jumped across to us. We got close to catching but never quite made it then with two laps to go Gary (Mountivation Team Manager) shouted that I was first Junior, it gave me a boost and I started to work even harder to stay away. The other riders had team mates in the break and knew it was too late to bridge across the gap. Dean said to me "Don't panic we'll make sure we get you across the line as 1st Junior", so we pressed on and I felt more relaxed and started to work even harder. We opened up a gap on the peloton and never looked back to the finish. Great result for me in my first road race of 2012 finishing as 1st Junior!
 |
| Me in the 4 man chasing break with Dean Downing! |
 |
| About to cross the line, hard race! 1st Junior |
This was the first race we have raced as a team. We have practised race scenarios on the boot camps and now was time to put it into practise. Great team effort by Matt, Tom, Josh, James, Jack, and I. And a huge thanks to Gary, Phil, Henry, Amanda, and all of our parents for supporting us!
Last weekend was the second Mountivation Boot Camp held at Arnside. The full team was here including Josh Knights from the Isle of Man and newly recruited team member James Knox. We did loads; riding, cooking, race analysis, Spanish, mock interviews, bike mechanic workshops, turbo sessions, and team bonding. It was pretty cool riding with a UK pro team's team car with us on day 2, thanks Peter Kay! We have gelled really well now as we have all got to know each other, and all the work from the boot camp has paid off in the first race. Thanks to everyone there that supported us, it was a really great weekend.
 |
| Turbo Session |
 |
| Dinner Time |
 |
| New Mountivation Team Wheels |
Also follow me on twitter, https://twitter.com/#!/JamesJosephKing ,
Thanks for reading, next post will be after the Eddie Soens next Saturday, hopefully we can have another good performance, good luck team Mountivation!
James
