Enjoying the evening sunshine and large crowds around the town center circuit, young Pedal Power\Endura rider Robbie Hassan rode an intelligent and strong race to win the inaugural The Peebles Criterium 2011, part of the Tweedlove Festival, fending off a strong challenge from Director’s Choice’s Allan Clark and Endura Racing professional Callum Wilkinson.
These three, together with Scott McRae from Team Leslie Bikes had managed to detach themselves from the much-reduced bunch with seven laps of the tight and fast left-turning circuit remaining, and after 45 minutes of hard racing the four held off the remaining chasers by a handful of seconds, Craig Hardie (Director’s Choice) taking the gallop on Peebles High Street for fifth place, ahead of Gary Hand (Pedal Power\Endura).
The evening had started with the “family victory lap”; a chance for the huge number of children and their families in the area to have a go around the closed roads for thirty minutes, before the race got underway – a novel idea by the race organiser John Anderson, of thebicycleworks.com, and much appreciated by the locals.
The race attracted many of Scotland’s best known riders, and with the lovely summer evening keeping the roads dry and the crowd level high, they were keen to put on a show – perhaps a little too keen, as several riders told us afterwards;
“At the riders’ meeting before the start, it was agreed that for the first 15 or 20 minutes we would ride quickly, get warmed up, keep it together and give the crowd a good show, before starting to race ‘for real’.
“However, some of the lads forgot about all that when we started, and the first ten minutes were ‘ballistic’!”
Indeed, riders who we had down to figure towards the end of the race found themselves having to close splits in the back-half of the string right from the off, with the race proving to be one of natural selection with riders sliding out the back door, rather than gaining space off the front.
The whittling down process continued until around halfway when there were just 14 riders left in the front group, with a second bunch of around ten riders, picking up lapped riders and gaining some more tailenders now and again, some of whom appeared after a little absence – presumably after needing laps out.
This second group was lapped and asked to retire when the race was heading into the last six laps.
Gary Hand (Pedal Power\Endura) launch several stinging but ultimately unsuccessful attacks through the finishing line during these closing laps, but it was Clark’s acceleration with just three laps to go which was countered by Hassan and McRae, with Wilkinson getting across in short order, which proved to be the winning move.
These four worked well until coming onto the High Street for the last time, when they gave the large audience a superb sprint, lined across the road, with Hassan producing the final kick which took him a couple of metres clear of the other three.
