by Helen Hatcher
When I joined CUCC in the 1990s there were very few women and even less of us were interested in competing. I had come from Scotland where I had even ridden with Sir Chris Hoy in a club and was keen to raise the profile of women in cycling in Cambridge. I set about starting to ride with others and to find out if we could get a group of women trained to do time trial and team trial events. Often, we rode around roads that will be familiar with those in the club near six mile bottom and over to Shelford and Newton. Sometimes, we rode with the men, especially learning the chain gang techniques. Our bikes were old steel with the odd luxury aluminium and only the fastest men had access to the glory carbon. The club, as ever, was very social and the men supported us to compete in Varsity matches and for some of us in BUSA (now known as BUCS) and national events. The men let us join them for team time trial training by Orwell and we joined in the yearly hill climb and roll down challenges at Barrington hill. Some of us also branched out into mountain biking and triathlon, collecting more members along the way. By 1996 we had an established Varsity team who had trained and competed in some team time trial events as well. A few of us competed in the National 10, 25 and 50 milers as well as some team trial events and obviously the individual time trials around the region.
Our 4-Up time, from the 1997 BUSA national 50 km championship, still stands as the women’s record. This is something of a miracle as I had been up all night the night before delivering a baby on my maternity attachment and fell asleep briefly but was woken as my wheel hit the verge and the adrenaline probably powered all of us for the rest of the event! The team are pictured in the photo of the four of us. We had an international team with members from New Zealand, Chris Couldrey, who still rides joined in 1996, and Nicolle Laviolette from Canada joined in 1998. I represented CUCC as the Captain of the Team from 1996 and had the sport accepted as a Blues event given years of Varsity and high performances nationally. Two of us (Helen Clark and Nicolle Laviolette) came 3rd nationally in the 2Up in 1998 beating the Oxford crew. Helen also came in the top 5 in the National series of 10/25/50 time trials in 1997 and 1998. Many of us continued in cycling and represented other clubs or the country. I was lucky to compete in the world Ironman Championships in Hawaii in 2008 for the hottest time trial (over 40 degrees Celsius) I have ever completed where I met the amazing athlete and fellow CUCC rider from years later, Lucy Gossage, a triathlon and ultra legend. I am still cycling in all forms from road to MTB and triathlon and the love of riding a bike with friends never leaves you. It’s a great sport and it’s good to see how many more people are involved both men and women. I hope the club continues to grow, enjoy all forms of riding and compete for those who enjoy it.
