By Maddie Angwin
BUCS TTT. 5 teams. 1 sketchy course.
I’ll spare the typical details of the inevitably early drive over to Castle Combe and the rubbish weather as they seem to be a staple of CUCC’s racing experience. The course, however, is worthy of some explanation. Tales of its sketchiness proceeded it. We had already heard of Rob Walkers encounter with a bush a few years back and Jack Kellam’s team getting lost twice in the same race, therefore hopes of all our teams surviving to the finish line were low.
Off first for CUCC were the road bike team of Matt Davison, Tim Bodey and Lucas Beighein, wearing an eclectic mix of skinsuits which really showed that style is CUCC’s … forte. Whist Tim Bodey’s pride in his white ‘skinner’ is unparalleled, the team’s time of 56:28 was extremely impressive given their one training session and putting them comfortably near the top of the road bike category.
Up next the ‘low riders’ team of Luke Andrews, Jacob Lewis and Matt Rizzo-Naudi sped round the course in 53:37 and without disassembling Luke’s headset, fixing Jacob’s bike or stopping at the café mid-ride, an impressive feat indeed.
The ‘tall bois’ team of Joe Adlam-Cook, Tom Wade and Harry Weedon put down the watts to get round the course in 50:29. However, Joe decided to take his time on a short magical mystery tour at one of the junctions just to ensure that they got the most from their TTT experience. A great race from the team but unfortunately, they narrowly missed out on the podium, coming 4th by one second.
On the women’s side the runner (Phoebe Barker) and the rowers (Jo Matthews and Imogen Grant) united to make a team of big hitters. Playing to their strengths they decided to have Phoebe on the front for all the hills, Jo for the downhills and Imogen for the flat sections. Whilst not typical for a TTT this method worked extremely well for them (except for Jo’s brief encounter with the verge) as they came away with a 56:48 and 1st on the podium!
Setting off three minutes after Oxford’s first team, Miranda “went on a rampage” Clements, Zoe “please Miranda slow” Burrell and Maddie “Ease Miranda, EASE” Angwin put in a strong effort to claim 2nd with a time of 58:01, making the podium (majority) Cambridge Blue (with an unfortunate but unavoidable tint of Loughborough purple).
The strong performance by Phoebe, Jo and Imogen paired with Joe, Tom and Harry’s wattage gave Cambridge a combined time of 1h47, resulting in Cambridge winning the fastest overall team medal.
It was a great day out. Zero crashes. Three podiums. Twelve medals. Back for Matt and Joes birthday bash.