This was the big one. National Champs is always a strange race, it means so much to so many people for different reasons but you can guarantee one thing. Everyone wants to win it!

I got a good start and settled down into the lead group, for the first 20mins Liam Killen was content to set a good pace and try and simply ride people off his wheel with his Diesel like riding style. Around the 40min mark there was still a group of 5 at the head of the race and it was beginning to get difficult to hold my preferred position of 2nd in the group. I put in a big attack on the hardest section of the course, I got a small gap but it wasn’t decisive. I sat up and let them come back to me, Liam immediately carried on with his unrelenting style. I attacked again the following lap and that was it the race was set it was going to be a 2lap race one on one against Liam. Over the last lap Liam really tried to stretch things and kicked out of every corner as hard as he could. He was taking some risks in the corners but I always felt comfortable following. With the final section being a tricky off camber series of corner before a short uphill drag to the finish it was vital to lead into here. I left it to the last possible moment to overtake into these corners so he didn’t have an opportunity to come back at me. I left the braking late and got into the corner well clear only for me to feel my back wheel being hit just as I tipped it in. Liam unfortunately went down and I was left to ride the last 400m to the line. Thats part of racing and I hate to think how many times I clipped his rear wheel during the race but managed to hold it up.

My first National Elite Title!