Jamie reports on the National Youth Series at the Isle of Man

Jamie Kershaw reports on an eventful first National Youth Series race at the Isle of Man!

At the weekend I raced in my first National youth series race at the Isle of Man and it would also be my first time racing on closed roads.

The first stage was a short 1.5km TT along Douglas promenade. The weather turned out to be nice for when the racing started and I did a 1:59 putting me in 20th.

Saturday’s stage was a hilly affair with 1900 feet of climbing in 17 miles, the pace again was high and I stayed in the front group until the last couple of laps and finished 17th which also put me in 17th in the GC.

Sunday came about and it had been raining through the night and the roads were quite wet, the pace was high and unfortunately on the last lap there was an incident where 5 riders came down at speed and I was one of them. Due to this I didn’t get to finish the last stage as my helmet was damaged, the buckle on my shoe had come off as well and I had a bike that no longer moved so that was the end of my first experience of closed road racing.

I really enjoyed the experience and look forward to going back in the future. The plan is to be racing this weekend at Pembrey in the 2nd round of the youth series with 4 stages over the 2 days. At the moment though still feeling a bit achy and sore in places with the road rash. 

Thank you Jamie! Well done, and hope you are feel tip top for next weekend.