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
Varsity & BUCS 25 Race Report
The Cambridge 1-2-3
What a day! Once again, our annual Varsity match rolled around, this year taking place on home ground, taking two laps to complete the E33/25 course just outside Six Mile Bottom. After taking 8 successive victories, our Men’s side were confident yet eager to make it 9. Our Women’s team were the underdogs going into the day, but as ever with bike racing, who knows what could happen on the day!
John Mulvey
Easter Saturday dawned, and our intrepid bunch of 19 woke to a beautiful April morning, with very little wind but high temperatures meaning a load of fast times were expected.
As is the honour in putting on an event, fresher Craig Rogers (fitz) was first off, and with his brother along to support (or maybe just laugh) he set the fastest provisional time
Seb Dickson
(unsurprisingly) in a 55:51, which was to last for a whole 10 minutes. Shortly behind him was one of our trio of women, Olivia Jamrog (Lucy Cav), who came home with a 1:11:36, over 3 minutes quicker than her target! Next up was Flora (Eddie’s), who rode a 1:06:39, narrowly missing out on a top 10.
Toby Cowell
Next up was club pres Rob Walker (Pembroke), looking to improve on 10th place from 2 years ago on the same course. Sporting a very nice new skinsuit, Rob ultimately rode a 52:07, which by the end of the day was never surpassed. His first individual BUCS medal being Gold, this was an astounding ride and a testament to all the hard work and training he’s been putting in! Chapeau!
Euan Tebbutt
In what was supposedly his last ever TT (I highly doubt it, and really hope not too), Toby Cowell (Catz) was our next rider to come in, riding a 54:11, which was just 10s short of a top 10. Next back was fresher Lucas He (Caius), who broke the hour by 5s. Baf (Queens’), on his bespoke ‘planet BAF’ bike, gave the camp a hearty wave as he completed lap 1 and went on to ride a 1:02:46, just missing out on a top 50 on the day.
Lucas He
Another one of our many Fitz fresher’s came next, being Andrew Salkeld on his new Dolan. He recorded a 1:06:23 in his first outing on a TT bike. Jonny Bodey (and his pocket full of Jelly Babies) (Magdalene) was next, riding a 1:02:09 on the fantastically Chinese club TT bike. Hans Verschueren (Kings) rode a 1:05:09 to be our next rider home. Euan ‘not gonna be events sec’ Tebbutt (Jesus) was CUCC’s 11th rider home in a 1:01:06.
Hans Verschueren
Our 3rd lady from 3, Marilou Boddé (Queens’), rode a 1:23:31 to complete our time for the Women’s Varsity, eventually a 3:41:46. Next was our finest Welshman Jack Kellam (Eddie’s), who came home in a 57:20, enough for 31st on the day. James Quigley (another Fitz Fresher rode a 1:07:43.
Johnny Bodey
Next came Men’s Race Captain Jack in his new ActiveEdge skinsuit (very Quicksteppy), but was disappointed with his ride, despite doing enough for 8th in a 53:46. Jali Packer (Kings) was unfortunate to not slip under the hour, with a 1:00:39, but still enough for a top 50. Dan O’Riordan (Robinson) rode a 1:07:07, a cracking time with very little aero kit!
Jack Kellam
Our final two riders were the evergreen pairing of John Mulvey (Eddie’s) and Seb Dickson (Corpus), both of which have previously won the individual Varsity (John for the previous two years). Despite moaning about his poor ride (some things will never change), Seb rode a 52:14, taking 3rd place on the day, whilst John did a 52:11 to take 2nd, only losing out to teammate Rob.
Andrew Salkeld
Any one Uni taking a 1-2-3 in a BUCS event hasn’t happened in recent memory, nor back through the 20 years-worth of records we have, and this really underlines CUCC’s quality. Of course, this brought the Men’s Team Gold and Varsity Victory (by almost quarter of an hour!), and also earnt Rob, John and Seb their half-blues.
Jali Packer
Enough for 3rd overall team was the trio of Jack, Toby and Craig, but as ever this doesn’t count in the eyes of BUCS, but this would’ve also easily won the Varsity A team if not for Rob, John and Seb, thereby taking home the Men’s B Team Varsity Trophy.
Unfortunately, with a depleted Women’s Squad due to illness, injury and hen do’s, Oxford won the Women’s Varsity for yet another year, but Flora and Olivia earnt Half Blues as both rides came under 1:15:00, their combined time also enough for 7th in BUCS. Rest assured we’ll be back again next year!
Ben Ferris
So that’s it for the BUCS TTs once again, with the only remaining event being the Road Race, which sees a strong squad of Ffion, Elspeth, John, Craig and Jack head up to York.
Dan O’Riordan
Women’s Results
| 11 | Flora Harpley Green | Cambridge | 1:06:39 | 14 |
| 23 | Olivia Jamrog | Cambridge | 1:11:36 | 4 |
| 27 | Marilou Bodde | Cambridge | 1:23:31 | 74 |
Men’s Results
| 1 | Rob Walker | Cambridge | 0:52:07 | 20 |
| 2 | John Mulvey | Cambridge | 0:52:11 | 120 |
| 3 | Sebastian Dickson | Cambridge | 0:52:14 | 105 |
| 8 | Jack Brown | Cambridge | 0:53:46 | 100 |
| 11 | Toby Cowell | Cambridge | 0:54:11 | 30 |
| 22 | Craig Rogers | Cambridge | 0:55:51 | 1 |
| 31 | Jack Kellam | Cambridge | 0:57:20 | 80 |
| 43 | Lucas He | Cambridge | 0:59:55 | 35 |
| 45 | Jali Packer | Cambridge | 1:00:39 | 112 |
| 47 | Euan Tebbutt | Cambridge | 1:01:06 | 73 |
| 49 | Jonny Bodey | Cambridge | 1:02:09 | 62 |
| 51 | Ben Ferris | Cambridge | 1:02:46 | 38 |
| 52 | Hans Verschueren | Cambridge | 1:05:09 | 68 |
| 54 | Andrew Salkeld | Cambridge | 1:06:23 | 58 |
| 56 | Dan O'Riordan | Cambridge | 1:07:07 | 122 |
| 58 | James Quigley | Cambridge | 1:07:43 | 98 |