Race report by Maddie Angwin
Defying all odds, thirteen CUCC riders made it to the Ely Hardrider’s course on Sunday without any crashes. A remarkable feat in the club’s history. Despite promises of snow in the two-week forecast, the weather turned out to be surprisingly pleasant by Hardriders standards. Very little wind and no rain – it looked set to be fairly perfect conditions for the course. However, it would not be in the nature of Hardriders to be easy, and it was the roads rather than the weather which proved a challenge for our riders this year. Extremely greasy corners would see four of our riders ‘take a little mid race nap’, with a further five non-CUCC riders inspired by this trailblazing recovery practice. However, the awful road conditions and associated CUCCup’s didn’t get in the way of our riders with Joe Adlam-Cook taking home second with a time of 57 minutes 46 seconds despite his mid race power nap. A strong performance from Tom Wade (1 hour 19 seconds) and Matt Rizzo-Naudi (1 hour 55 seconds) won the men’s TT bike category with two of the three riders staying rubber side down – a doubly impressive achievement.
The men’s road bike category saw equal success (and fewer stacks) with Quadzilla (Tim Welsh) winning the course with a time of 1 hour 1 minute 24 seconds. Colin Krawchuk (1 hour 2 minutes and 23 seconds) and Matt Davison (1 hour 4 minutes 35 seconds) both whipped round the course to win the team road bike victory as well.
On the women’s side Miranda Clements smashed her first 25-mile TT putting in a time of 1 hour 8 minutes and 20 seconds and winning the women’s road bike category. Nadja Nolte came second with a time of 1 hour 9 minutes and 36 seconds, whilst Maddie Angwin came second in the TT category with a time of 1 hour 9 minutes 56 seconds. Great results all round for the team and equally impressive cake consumption afterwards. The full results can be found here.
