Sunday 24th April saw the annual Chitterne National B road race hosted by Avid Sport. Chitterne is a small village on the Salisbury plain. The course is 6.75 laps of an undulating 12 mile circuit.

Three of the Saint Piran men’s team consisting of Brad Symonds, Jake Crossley & Ollie Hucks took to the start line. Excited to get stuck in and see what they could do, there was a stiff north easterly breeze meaning a cross wind on the rolling back side of the course and a tailwind up through the finish so positioning into this section was crucial. The bunch was all together after the first lap and going into the key sector a big move by approximately 6 riders hit the front of the bunch with speed and quickly gapped the front of the bunch.

Ollie was positioned a few wheels off the head of the bunch at this point and as Brad was in the initial move Ollie managed to bridge across with other riders before they hit the tailwind where the group of now 10 riders establish a gap on the rest of the field.

Brad and Ollie kept in constant contact, often not vocally, sometimes just a little nod to signify the legs are ok and made sure they were never immediately next to each other in the group to ensure moves from throughout the group were covered.

With just under a lap to go the gap to the next group was north of three minutes. With constant attacks now beginning to happen Brad and Ollie were managing to make sure one of them was in any significant move off the front.

Coming into the final few kilometres Brad was in a small move with two others that rolled off the front just before the small incline with 2kms to go. This allowed Ollie to surf the wheels of the riders getting back in contact and he managed to get over to Brad and the two others, as Ollie approached the leading group he realised they were focused on each other and therefore maintained his effort to go straight past them over the top of the incline and form an attack for the finish, despite his legs tyring he managed to maintain this lead to take the win, meanwhile Brad formed his attack to take second place, while Jake finished comfortably in the bunch and helped execute the plan they had set out at the start so this was certainly a true team effort.

Ollie said “This was my first road race win for the team and so it feels great to start to repay all involved for the hard work they put into all things Saint Piran, I'm sure there's plenty more wins to come from the whole squad this year.”

Saint Piran Take The Win At Chitterne