CUCC Summer Racing Round-Up

Our riders might have been scattered around the country for the long vacation, but that hasn’t stopped CUCC bringing home a host of fantastic results over the summer months.

Back in late July, one half of the coming year’s social sec team – Ffion James – put in a strong performance on her mountain bike, finishing a fantastic 2nd place in the Women’s U23 race at the National XC Championships at Cannock Chase.

Craig ‘Mystery’ Rogers has been battling away at a load of Northern 2/3/4s, winning the Ian Mountain Memorial RR, finishing 2nd at the Cold Dark North RR and then also competing at the Harlech ‘Hell’ Climb, finishing 6th in a quality field up an especially grim climb (recently recategorised as the steepest in the world!) to show good form as hill climb season comes into view.

Craig Rogers (Fitz) winning the Ian Mountain Memorial RR. Cred. Kieran Metcalfe Photography

Lucas ‘The Bullet’ He has continued a season of great TT results, a particular highlight being the VC Baracchi 50 near Norwich, where he clocked a rapid 1:51:17 to bag a quality 2nd place. He then followed this up with another podium on the 25 mile variant of the same course a week later, finishing in 56:04.

When not trying to finish writing up his PhD thesis, John Mulvey has been casually winning the odd TT here and there, including the Victoria CC and Chronos RT 10s on the same day?!. The latter was won with a rapid 18:51 on the F2A/10 course just west of Cambridge.

Moving into August, aside from seeing his form slide away through a month of 30-minute crits in Crystal Palace Park, Website Secretary Jack Kellam took the club’s Zipp wheels all the way back home to South Wales for an average day out at the CTT Welsh 10-mile Championship near Abergavenny, finishing 15th for a 20:24. Faring far better, however was Women’s Captain Elspeth Grace who traded her standard ‘cross tyres for slicks, coming 5th in the Women’s field in the Victoria CC 10.2 on the Bank Holiday weekend.

Jack Brown (Caius) on his way to a new CUCC 25 record

General Secretary Jack Brown headed over to a dual carriageway near Derby for the rescheduled RTTC National 25 Championships after a summer comprised mainly of lugging touring kit up mountains and trolling the numerous (8!) Loughborough students he keeps beating in road races.

TT-position muscle memory proved strong, however, as Jack churned out the watts to break the club 25 record for the second time this year, posting a 48:09(!) on the A25/11, good enough for a top 10 finish (9th) on the day. Rumour has it he might get his skis out and head down to the R25/3h in South Wales in search of a 47′ next year.

All in all, its been another superb summer of racing across the board for the club with numerous great results and performances not covered here. With another intake of talented freshers just round the corner, things are looking good for BUCS 2019/20, with the season-opener hill climb up Mam Tor fast approaching at the end of October.

Rob and Seb get their full blues!

Rob Walker and Seb Dickson travelled down to near Bristol for the National Circuit Championships, with the aim of collecting a top 50 to accomplish their full blues.

With Rob having his end of term project just finished and Seb finally getting round to doing the whole finish a degree thing (‘both the most and least anticipated event of the year’) with finals, masters dissertation write up etc neither had the sharpest legs.

The course was the same used for the BUCS TTT – a technical and somewhat lumpy if scenic romp around the roads near Tomarton.  There was varying familiarity with the course – Seb from his 5 previous appearances in that event and Rob from a previous 2 (even if on the second appearance he got confused by a slight corner perniciously pretending to be a straight road and cycled off the side of it. See: BUCS TTT 2019). However, unlike the BUCS TTT  this turned out to be two laps  (40miles), a rather different proposition for the inherently lazy who like their bike races to be over quickly so they can get back to eating cake.

In the end, the very strong field on paper was hollowed out slightly by misfortune, with world tour pro Harry Tanfield having exceptionally poor luck to puncture cycling to the start, and even worse luck to do that next to Seb, whose cheery offer of an out of true 10 speed mavic aksium with a seized freehub was summarily disregarded by the Katusha Alpecin rider.

Rob set a time of 1:30:54 round the course, managing not to get foxed by mischievous ‘roads with slight changes of direction’ and this was good enough for 13th on the day, beating many impressive names, and easily clearing the barrier to converting his half blue from winning the varsity match for his maiden full blue.

Seb  could only find one sock and no overshoes or skinsuit having been too hungover packing the day before. He further thought he’d prove that testing your race nutrition strategy before hand is a good idea by not doing so; chugging his first gel in about 4 years then throwing it back up 10 miles later along with his breakfast, all over the skinsuit he had borrowed that morning. As such, there is not much photographic evidence of the assymetric vommity twit. Despite this, he did 1:27:24 and clung on for 7th, getting his final full blue to add to the previous 2 and a half.

It now just remains for John Mulvey to attempt his and they will get the full set!

Seb and Rob at the Circuit Champs

 

Lea Valley 25Mile TT

The second of the early season events after the Great Ely Hardriders saw an absolutely massive 18 CUCC members entered for the solo event.

However, an equally significant forecast for 40mph gusts caused a similarly large 5 people to think better of it and report a DNS and heavy use of synonyms for ‘big’.

As in previous years it also looked to serve as an initial shakedown for Varsity, with  5 OUCC  on the startsheet and some strong pre race chat.

Solo Event

The conditions did in fact turn out to be miserable, with early riders out complaining and worrying the later starters. In the end, only 2 from OUCC turned up, so we can ignore them, as we would have done anyway.

Jack Kellam pulled out a stunning ride to take 4 and a half minutes of his PB in 56:26 and a provisional 3rd place with it – in his 2nd ever open TT! One to watch.
4s back was Toby on his P5, with Toby on his P5 a further 16s back – provisionally taking the team prize and with it the ‘Dick Murphy Memorial Trophy’ for the fastest team from a London East Club.

Flora did 1:17:55, which looks good for a provisional 2nd in the Womens Event.

Andy Salkeld pulled out a 1:06:54 – a very strong ride from the only bloke on a road bike!

A few events stand out: Lucas He recorded an 8 minute late start (not included in the times below), which was impressive.
However, Andy Salkeld, yawning and stretching his arms, got out of bed to take up the challenge. Not realising that, unlike the club run, Greater Anglia will not wait for you if you have a relationship with your alarm clock that is purely advisory, Andy recorded what must be a club record 41 minute late start. (The Comp record for actually riding 25 miles currently stands at 42:58, for comparison). Chapeau! Now get your life in order.

Tom Adams went so fast he managed to catch someone who started 10 minutes after him (or maybe they turned early?!).  Finally,  Toby Antippas queued up behind people all signing the sign on sheet at Sign On, reached over the Signing on Sheet at the Sign On, took the number at Sign On, but did not in fact Sign On to the Signing On sheet at Sign On. Easy mistake to make I guess?

Recent alumnus Seb Baucutt did a 1:14:42.

Team Event

The 2Up Event saw 16 pairs entered, but 3 of them DNS’d with the forecast 40mph winds due to come in just in time for the start of this event.

CUCC was represented by an executive pairing of the President and General Secretary (Rob Walker and Seb Dickson), and would also see the first clash between CUCC and its progeny and reigning National Team Time Trial Champions John Mulvey and Felix Barker for ActiveEdgeRT.

Whilst the winds did pick up, it was nowhere near as bad as forecast (Felix ‘Mystic’ Barker’s prediction ‘oh it’ll be fine’ coming good- how does he do it?). As the forecast was for it to be terrible, it was still fairly grim.

Rob’s Calves and Seb recorded a 52:48, shaving 5s off the club record set by Seb and John Mulvey in the same event two years prior.
Seb’s skinsuit gave up after all of 300m leading to a nasty case of nether numbness. This is best left to the imagination (preferably not even there lets be honest), a privilege alas denied to anyone unfortunate enough to see them around the course. This was actually his spare skinsuit, having neglected to have washed his main (and structurally integral) skinsuit since BUCS Track in December.

In a bit of an upset, this was also good enough to hold off ActiveEdge for nearly a minute with 53:43. No other pair made it under the hour, making it a dominant display by CUCC and its alumni!

#whoarethechampions?

NameTime
Jack Kellam 56:24
Toby Antippas 56:30 (after a bit of grovelling to the event organiser that is)
Toby Cowell 56:46
Lucas He 58:08
Euan Tebutt 01:03:19
Tom Adams 01:03:34
Ben Ferris 01:05:21
Max Vesty 01:07:27
Andrew Salkeld 01:06:54
James Quigley 01:11:29
Carrie Bedingfield 01:17:55 (deffo not Flora)

Lea Valley CC E1/25b including new club record

Despite the promised wet weather, several members enjoyed warm and dry conditions on the E1/25b on Sunday, promoted by Lea Valley CC. A quick glance through the start sheet showed a large Oxford contingent entered, and since public urination is frowned upon a strong showing was needed to mark our territory.

The gently rolling 25 mile course along single carriageway unfortunately starts at the south end, but a short train ride brought us to the HQ at Lea Valley CC’s cycling hut: a taste of the cycling club scene of the ‘50s. Continue reading

North Road Hard Riders Report

Report by Race Captain, John Mulvey

Ed Lee-Six, Hal Bradbury, Seb Dickson and myself showed our lack of knobbly-tyred inclinations and on the same date as the Varsity MTB race headed down to north London to ride the early season classic that is the North Road Hardriders.

Whilst the weather was kind this year, road works meant the hilly course was shortened to 22 miles. Seb placed 6th in 53.15, 2 mins down on winner Lloyd Chapman, with Hal 8th, myself 10th and Ed in 42nd. CUCC missed out on the team prize only because someone (cough Seb cough)  is not racing in light blue colours, so an encouraging result considering so many of us were away racing against Oxford.

Seb Receives his cheque for £50

Seb Receives his cheque for £50

Full race report available here: https://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/race-report/14538

Results

6th – Seb Dickson – 53:15
8th – Harold Bradbury – 54:04
10th – John Mulvey – 54:39
42nd  – Ed Lee-Six – 1:02:59