Banbury Star Women’s Road Race 2022
Team Beampods in top 2 positions.
The Banbury Star Women’s Road Race is a round of The British Team Womens Cup, for Cat E1/2/3 Women.Taking place on Sunday May 22nd, in an extremely well organised event by Banbury Star.
Starting at 1:30, the benign sunny and warm conditions of the men’s race from the morning had changed a little bit with the wind getting up and creating a slight tailwind for the riders as they went up the Warwick Road as they began the 3 laps, 45 mile race on the same circuit as the men. Once again including 3 climbs of Edge Hill making this a very challenging course.
The field of 60 riders stayed together on the 1st lap, everybody settling into a brisk pace. The race began unfolding on the 2nd lap on the lower slopes of Edge Hill, as Team Beampods,as Mary Wilkinson and her teammates, began pulling on the front. Quite quickly a group of 12 got away from the rest of the bunch and established a lead of 1 minute, as they went out onto the Stratford Road. The 12 worked well together and the lead went out to 4 minutes.
As they reached Warmington Hill on the last lap, one of Team Beampods riders went very hard and stretched the 12 out and eventually breaking the group of 12 down to 4 for the final dash uphill to the finishing line on the grippy slope up to the Warwick Road from Horley.
The 4 included Mary Wilkinson – Team Beampods, Lucy Harris- Team Beampods, Tamsin Miller -Bianchi Hunt Morvelo and Kelly Murphy – Ellemore Digital Composite Team. Mary Wilkinson had already taken the Queen of the Mountain prize , scooping up the points as the group charged for the line.
Mary, who has won this race in 2018, knew her way around the course and planned a final charge to cross the line. Which she duly did, followed by her teammate Lucy Harris and Tamsin Miller for Bianchi Hunt Morvelo in 3rd place.
In comments after the win Mary said, “ I won here in 2018 so knew the course well, I really went hard at the bottom of the hill and got a nice gap and that was all I needed, it is a very nice course but….phew! It is hard!”