Chris Spence ended a 2 week trip to San Diego with an Excellent 5th Place in the San Luis Rey Road race in the Pro.1.2 Division held over 88 challenging miles.

The event is San Diego's Premier Road race held on a 14.5 mile circuit with a 600 ft, 2.5 mile climb to the finish each lap. Conditions for the race were perfect with temps in the high 70's low 80's on a glorious sunny day. The event attracted a large field of riders including a squad from Rock Racing, Kahala-La Grange, Liquid Fitness/Adageo Energy, the current California State Road Race champion and numerous Pro and 1st category riders to make up a full field of 85 riders.

The event started cautiously with such a strong field but before long the race was up to speed with many attacks being fired off up the road, at the end of lap 2 of 7, Spence had established himself in what looked like a strong break which was to stay out in the front for a lap and a half until the Rock Racing Team who had failed to place a rider in it were forced to bring it back. A lap later another break formed which was to be the race winning move with Spence once again in it. The group was quite big to begin with but lap after lap on the climb riders were dropped until only 8 remained for the final accent to the finish.

The group by this time had established a lead of some three minutes over a chasing group. With all the riders feeling the effects of being in front for most of the day the race to the finish up hill seemed like a slow motion one with Spence only a few seconds behind the winner securing 5th spot and his best result for some years in an event that was easily if not a better standard than the English Premier Calendar events.

Spence travels this weekend to compete in the Lincoln Grand Prix which tackles the famous cobbled Michaelgate climb 11 times.