Bitter wind chill. I was shaking badly at the start of each race, but once on the bike it was fine.

Strong wind all day, speed varied somewhat. Sun came in and out. Temp went up and down.

Cat 5: I think there was a small crash on lap 1. 4 guys got away on first lap and sprinted it out at the end. Race splintered into several groups.

Masters 4/5: 50+ starters. 7 laps of a 1.7 mile circuit. My main contribution to this race was not bringing up my breakfast.

1st lap was pretty fast. Then it slowed down somewhat with a lot of stop/start stuff and mucho bunching. Didn't notice any primes. Some sketchy riding but nothing out of the ordinary. Very strong wind made it hard work at the front.

Last lap was fast. Faster than the 4s I think. Too many fresh legs swarming up from the back. My timing was a bit off and the pack split in half. Chased hard but didn't catch on until the last turn. Turned out to be a blessing for me because there was a gnarly crash about ten places ahead. Didn't see the initial contact but about 200 yards from the finish two riders tangled and went down hard, bringing 3 others down with them. I would have been right there but for getting gapped.

Bikes and bodies all over the road. 3 guys looked ok but two others were not moving. Everyone behind soft-pedalled home.

Ambulances called. Heard later that the one spidermonkey (cat 5 winner) had a broken collarbone and no recollection of what happened. His bike was broken in several places. Could have been a lot worse.

Cat 4: Much smoother race. Plenty of people having a go at the front but very hard to make progress. Saw one guy slip a pedal and make an amazing save. A few incidences of riders being forced onto the grass through the chicanes. 1 prime.

Breakfast now digested, on lap 2 I jumped OTF to join Porkchop who was happily yoyoing OTF in both races. Don't know if it was to encourage or kill breaks. Yelled at him to hop on. Got a decent gap, rotated a couple of pulls. Was really nice to choose the best line through some of the faster corners. A third guy tried to bridge up to us but the pack decided to bridge up as well. We weren't making any progress against the wind anyway. I retired to mid pack to recover and practise moving up and back through the pack. A couple of laps later a break of 8 got a gap but a couple of guys refused to work and it disintegrated - almost. Two guys stayed OTF by a few seconds and then one punched it. No problem, he wasn't going to last very long in the wind and the race was only getting warmed up. Wrong. I was pretty surprised to hear the bell unexpectedly early - hadn't been monitoring the lap counter. punched to get up to tenth wheel but got swarmed when the field bunched up on turn two where you hit the wind. Rhythm Racing were blocking effectively. Worked up to tenth again but got swarmed again at the next tight curve. Several guys went into the grass here. Got boxed in for quite a while, the pace never really increased and was only able to start moving up again before the last turn. Sprinting into that wall of crosswind was brutally hard, anyone who mastered it has my admiration. Very difficult to find any gaps with riders spread all across the road and everyone desperate for a draft. Moved up a dozen places or so initially then kept my mediocre placing for the last 100 yards.

The last lap was slower than the corresponding masters 4/5 last lap. Rhythm racing blocked very effectively and their man soloed home by about 7 seconds, I believe. Very impressive to be able to keep up over 25 mph solo in that wind.

Cat 4 race was 6 laps for exactly 25 minutes. Knowing that we had lost 10 minutes due to the previous crashes, I presume the officials were trying to make up time by cutting the race short but, with the largest race numbers of the day and an already too-short 30 minutes scheduled I feel that it is important that the allotted time be used. There were several races with 10-20 participants where cutting short a lap or two wouldn't make any difference. 40 pairs of fresh cat 4 legs bunched-up and charging into a headwind finish is scary. 1 extra lap would take a little bit of extra nervous energy out of those legs. I would also recommend throwing in several extra primes to shake things up and string things out a bit more - for safety's sake. Just found it remarkably short for an IL cup race.

Credits:

Teamwork: Full credit to XXX for having a plan and executing. They went 1/3/5 in the 4/5 race and did everything right.

Rhythm racing raced hard at the front and showed that just a couple of riders can slow a pack very effectively.

Jared raced hard and positively and got a brace of well-deserved results. One of the nicer guys out there.

Gotta mention Tony Rienks. Got amongst them in both races, worked hard and came away with two top 10s.

Womens cat 4 and cat 3 got reasonable turnouts. No breakaways but the ladies showed excellent form in the final sprints.

Masters 45+. A Wisconsin rider rode away from everyone else and won by two minutes. He didn't even appear to have a good position on the bike - must be super strong.

Masters 30+ : Planet bike rider solo'd OTF for most of the race and was only caught with 1/2 a lap to go. The final bunch sprint was scary hard. The Polish guy who came second was very impressive - watch him to win a lot of cat 3 races this year.

Didn't see the other races. I enjoyed the day. Thanks to Burnham for putting it on. It's a long day and hard to keep on schedule. Don't want my comments to appear harsh but the 4 and 4/5 races are attracting far larger crowds than any other field and I'd like to see the races a bit more testing - especially in an IL cup event. I think this would make them safer as well, but I guess Cat 4 crashes will always be with us.

My personal goals were to not crash, finish with the leaders and get some practice in bunch riding and speedwork. Mission achieved.