Sixty riders took to the start of the Battle of the Black Loch in Falkirk on Sunday morning, and the racing was very active from the flag drop.
With a field of junior riders competiting for national honours, as well as a very strong field of senior riders fighting for the race win, it was set to be a competitive five and half laps of racing.
Several early attacks were chased down by the peloton, Sam Barbour (Ribble rechrg), James Sweeney (Beeston CC) among the early junior attackers, who were joined by Davie Lines (Wheebase CabTech Castelli), Alex Ball (Project1) and Murray Souttar (Torvelo) from the senior ranks in animating the early racing.
Still conditions on the usually blustery Falkirk course kept the race together but did not deter the escape attempts – with the first four laps seeing multiple attacks, none of which could muster more than a 20 second advantage before they were brought back.
The active racing saw huge levels of attrition to the peloton, with fewer than half the starters in the leading group on the final tour of the circuit.
Eventually a select group was able to force their way clear, with around 11 riders contesting the win on the uphill drag to the finish line.
Sam Chisholm (The Cycling Academy) was clearly the strongest of those remaining – powering towards the win – his first road race victory.
The medals in the junior championship would be decided from that group, with Sweeney claiming a deserved gold, as the only rider able to hold on to Chisholm’s coat tails in the final.
Alex Ball was third across the line after a day of being on the attack.
In the championship race Robert Smart (Ribble rechrg) claimed silver, after a strong fourth place finish, with Evan Marsh (Beeston CC) just behind in fifth place overall – the third junior.
Sweeney claimed the road race title, just 24 hours after missing out on the time trial equivalent – where he won silver. Read the report from Fenwick here.
A huge thanks to Callum McNicol for organising the Battle of the Black Loch and the huge team of volunteers for making Sunday’s racing possible.
It’s just three weeks away from the Scottish National Road Race Champs for the Senior Open riders and Senior and Junior Females on Sunday 4th August in Newton Stewart.
Entries are still open, and you can enter here.