Training Camp 2022

Posted on 17th January 202218th January 2022

CUCC General Secretary 2021-22 Matt Bryan reports back from the club’s annual trip to the sunny roads of Spain…

After two long years, CUCC was once again able to return to Calpe for its annual training camp at the start of January. Situated on Spain’s stunningly beautiful Costa Blanca, the area is one of the most popular cycling destinations globally, and as a result attracts a huge number of riders, from professionals to Cambridgeshire-based choppers. Whilst the area is known for beachside resorts like Benidorm (and its unique culture), CUCC’s finest were there with strict goals in mind: get faster, eat a lot, have fun whilst doing it. We can confirm that at least two of the three were achieved.

The trip started very early in a dark and miserable England (or Amsterdam if you are CUCC’s resident European), but just a few hours later we reconvened in the bright and sunny baggage claim of Alicante airport. After sitting around for a good 20 minutes waiting for Zoe’s bike box to materialise despite it having already come off the conveyor belt long before we arrived, we made our way to the first cafe of the trip (even on holiday, CUCC has its priorities straight). Having re-energised and devoured the first bocadillo jamon of many, we were met by our very smiley transfer driver, who helped load our bikes and bags into the Green Machine. The Green Machine felt a very apt name for the retina-damaging lime-green Mercedes sprinter with a huge trailer that whisked us an hour down the coast to the villas.

Having settled into the two huge conjoined villas that would be our base for the week, and acquainted ourselves with the hire bikes, we headed out to the local supermercado whilst Joe, Tom, Hugo & Zoe continued to bodge their bikes together. For me, the foreign supermarket is the most enthralling part of any holiday; so familiar yet so alien. What is this vegetable? Can you buy sliced bread? How cheap is the alcohol? We promptly answered all these questions, but this is also probably why this trip to the shops took a good 90 minutes. With daylight fading at a welcome 6pm, we snuck out for a quick 45km with more climbing than the average rower does in their lifetime. The roads were smooth, drivers friendly, views immense – we had truly arrived in a cyclist’s paradise.

On our return, naturally, we did what any Brit would do in the depths of January; have a big old fashioned barbeque. Luckily we realised that Sam was vegetarian beforehand, so prepared him a delightfully solid veggie burger that more resembled a NHL-grade hockey puck than food. It was at this point that a fantastic idea (which I will take full credit for) was born – CUCC does Come Dine with Me on tour. 6 nights, 6 hastily organised couples prepare a two-course meal and entertainment and compete for the most points – what could go wrong? After a couple of isotonic IPAs and fermented apple juices, we retired for the night. The next day brought the first proper day of riding, which we all unanimously agreed was Day 2. At first 82km seemed like a bit of a joke – ‘that’s less than 3 hours surely?’. Oh how wrong we were. The major issue was the ascent of the Puerto de Tudons, all 17.5km of it, taking us nearly 900m upwards. Unsurprisingly, this took a while, but less time for Joe Adlam-Cook who pulled an absolute classic Joe move and attacked almost instantly. Well, it was more of a case of cruising to the front of the train, asking how long it was to the top, and just going anyway. Rather unsurprisingly, this took everyone with him and it was every man and woman for themselves from there on in. The Tudons climb was featured on Stage 20 of the 2016 Vuelta, and I can tell you for one that I did not resemble Nairo Quintana on the way up, but it was thoroughly enjoyable, especially the descent into the mountain town that would be our lunch stop that followed.

A stop in Guadalest for the CUCC peloton with a view to the coast

In Guadalest, CUCC did what it did best – eat a lot of food, including lasagne and cheesecake, perfect training fuel – before cruising down the valley. In this section we were pursued by a couple of friendly DSM riders who particularly enjoyed it when Zoe sprinted past them on the descent. This took us down to the beach where Sam almost had a head-on with an irate QuickStep rider (which might have made the Classic season a bit more interesting). Here we enjoyed a refreshing drink and the end of an Arsenal game, how wonderfully British. Back home, Joe & Joris prepared a hearty serving of traditional paella and a roscon de reyes for dessert, a Spanish Christmas cake thing with lucky beans inside. Turns out these beans aren’t edible, and neither is the weird little porcelain Jesus figurine. Just a heads up for you all.

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Freshers’ TT 2021 Report

Posted on 24th October 202124th October 2021

RESULTS

Starting off CUCC’s riding and racing for this academic year was our Annual Freshers’ Time Trial with 44 racers of all levels of experience willing to test their mettle against our 9.5km TT loop from Newton. Our events secs had clearly put the work into setting it all up, booking some beautiful weather and multiple flyovers from a Lancaster Bomber (we think – we’re cyclists, not plane spotters) for what turned out to be an excellent day of racing.

We had some excellent pain faces today seen in the photos from our favourite photographer Nordin (@nordincatic), however questions were raised about how seriously some riders took the no TT equipment rule with rumours from the marshals about there maybe even being an 80mm deep wheel present at the event! Due to some traffic lights on the course this year, we had to run a marginally shorter route but the results were as impressive as ever with some rapid times in both the men’s and women’s categories.

We had some blistering times in the women’s category with our podium all within a minute of the fastest time. Rosie Wallace recorded an speedy 15:57 to win first place with Clara Dunbavin not far behind at 16:17 and Charlotte Wilde seconds after that at 16:32. The rest of the women’s field of 8 all also put out amazing times in what has been a very competitive start of CUCC’s racing calendar.

In the hotly contested men’s category there were some amazing times with the top 5 riders all recording sub 14-minute times and none more than 10 seconds apart. Sam Lewin put out the fastest time of the day with an eye-watering 13:21 with Jack Shuttleworth close behind at 13:28 followed shortly by Luke Andrews at 13:35. The remainder of the 36 riders out today weren’t far behind with some positions decided by literally a second and very good times all around.

Thanks all for coming to the TT as its always great to see so much interest in trying cycling/racing and we hope to see all these new faces out on the road (and in the pub)!

CUCC Summer Riding Roundup

Posted on 23rd October 202123rd October 2021

Elspeth Grace

The North Coast 500 is a route developed by the Scottish tourism board, with the aim of increasing visitor numbers to the beautiful but remote Highlands. Generally the route is undertaken in motorhomes, but Euan and I decided to do it on our bikes. We’d had a test tour on the King Alfred’s Way, a 460 km off-road loop between Reading and Salisbury, which had been character building (pitching a tent at 11:30pm on day two) so felt somewhat prepared for whatever Scotland had to throw at us. Which turned out to be rain, mostly.

We followed the GCN version of the route, designed by Mark Beaumont, which leaves the classic NC500 before John o’ Groats to cut South and avoid the busiest stretch of the A9. This also leaves the route short of its advertised 500 miles, so needs an extra loop around the Black Isle to finish. The GCN lot did it in three days but this seemed unnecessary- it’s worth noting that Mark Beaumont holds the world record for fastest circumnavigation of the Earth by bicycle, which he did in 78 and a half days, so possibly isn’t a suitable judge of “good idea”.

Day 1: Inverness to Lochcarron (108 kilometres / 67 miles)

The first day took us most of the way from Inverness to the west coast, a fairly dull route but with views of the mountains and we were blessed with decent weather (and our first midges). We had a gentle tailwind for the most part, which was a welcome feature of the whole ride- miraculously the wind kept changing as we changed direction, so there weren’t many days suffering into a headwind.

Day 2: Lochcarron to Kinlochewe (101 km / 62 mi)

Day two took us into the hills, with the longest climb in the UK within half an hour of setting out from the campsite. Bealach na Ba has several hairpins and is supposedly the most alpine climb in this country, although the cloud did come to meet us as we rode uphill. It’s 8km / 5 miles averaging 7%, with some savage pitches at the end. This lump in the route profile obscured what was to follow, which ended up being another three hours of very tough up and down, on wet coast roads. We finished in the midgiest campsite in the world, and had to keep walking around while setting up our tent, cooking and having our dinner to avoid being eaten alive.

Day 3: Kinlochewe to Ullapool (123 km / 76 mi)

We set out early on day three to avoid midges and a wet forecast. We’d planned an easier day, but when we got to our endpoint at Garve we found there was nothing there and it was only lunchtime. We worked our way through a p p p packet of penguins and set off up An Teallach, which was a hard climb on tired legs. We did have a rival group of cycle tourists to catch, and were rewarded for our efforts with cups of tea and Tunnocks tea cakes when we caught up to the van those riders had cunningly left all of their baggage in. Arriving in Ullapool meant visiting The Seafood Shack, eating battered haddock wraps. This was the best thing I’ve eaten this year (although the free Tunnocks tea cake is also in the top five which perhaps devalues my ranking system).

Day 4: Ullapool to Scourie (104 km / 64 mi)

Having ridden half of day four’s route on day three, we had a day of two half routes. The morning was sunny and rolling, with lovely views of Stac Pollaidh. It all went horribly wrong for me after pies for lunch, and I had my worst day of the tour on a very hard, long road- when it wasn’t going straight up it went straight down, and it rained both heavily and constantly. The day had over 2000m of elevation and I think I felt every metre of it!

Day 5: Scourie to Durness (46 km / 28 mi)

Day five was a short one as we’d completely butchered our itinerary and needed a short one. We rolled over to Durness and went to a cafe called Cocoa Mountain for a very very good hot chocolate. At this point we were over halfway through the route and had done more than half of the climbing.

Day 6: Durness to Melvich (92 km / 57 mi)

On the sixth day we were blessed with more rain, with periods of lovely sun. We were both quite cooked, but did get to see birds of prey and some lovely views of the coast.

Day 7: Melvich to Rogart (102 km / 63 mi)

Day seven was where we left the standard route and cut southwest, going through the most remote bits of the trip. We went up our final big climb of the trip, and had lunch in Brora, which was the only town for miles around. Then back into empty highlands for some wild camping, with a screeching tawny owl camped up next to us.

Day 8: Rogart to Portrose (126 km/ 78 mi)

Our penultimate day brought another early start, which combined with a short route lead us to decide to carry on, onto the Black Isle. This meant going within touching distance of Inverness and then turning off for a 64 kilometre / 40 mile extra loop. Fortunately it was relatively flat with one significant and unwelcome climb away from the lovely coast road, which was not very nice on deadlegs. We got our first portion of chips in Dingwall, shockingly late on in the trip, and looked for dolphins at Portose harbour.

Day 9: Portrose to Inverness (25 km / 15 mi)

The last day was very short, just a gentle roll over the bridge into Inverness, then up to the castle to get our “after” photos. We celebrated our victory over the North Coast 500 with Costa mochas before setting off home.

Conclusions

We had planned to cover the distance in nine full days of riding with one rest day in the middle and a couple of shorter days, but ended up doing it in eight and a bit days (the last day only taking about an hour to cover the 15 miles we had left). This was mainly because, on our short days, we’d arrive at our destination and realise there wasn’t much there, so we may as well just keep cycling. We rode with everything we needed- tents, clothing, cooking gear, spares and tools, and bought food en route. Our preparation included coming up with a comprehensive list of the campsites, cafes, shops and bike shops along the route, found on Google Maps. This was really useful for knowing where we needed to stop (and helped when we did change our plans for distance covered each day). We were lucky with mechanicals, without so much as a puncture between us. We both rode gravel bikes with slick/ road tyres. It was a good, if hard, tour.

Totals

Distance: 827 km / 510 mi

Elevation: 10,764 m / 35314 ft

GCN inspo:

https://youtu.be/8J2gAY-WZhU

Le Col x CUCC

Posted on 13th October 202113th October 2021

Varsity 2021 Race Report

Posted on 22nd August 202122nd August 2021

It had been a long time coming, but more than two years after the last event, on the 11^th July the Cycling Varsity match finally returned. Oxf*rd had been unable to make BUCS 25 earlier in the year, so instead of the standard Bottisham circuit, this year’s time trial was instead hosted on the E1/25d course starting just outside of Ugley near Saffron Walden.

Unfortunately, some temporary traffic lights on the Friday evening put the event at risk! But thanks to the incredible generosity and effort of the Essex Roads CC organisers, when the lights disappeared at the last minute, we were still able to run a full 25 mile event – albeit with only Oxf*rd and Cambridge riders competing.

We were blessed with some good sunny, still conditions on the rolling out and back course which promised some fast times. With only varsity riders involved, once competitors were out on course, there was an even more spirited atmosphere than usual, with plenty of chances to shout encouragement to teammates being passed on the course!

All in all, CUCC had 15 riders taking part, looking to win the Women’s event for the first time in 6 years, and defend our long-held Men’s trophy. Having not competed against O*ford in a number of years, it was all to play for, with no real knowledge of what to expect from the opposition!

With some strong rides from Jack Brown (2^nd, 53:03), Jack Kellam (3^rd, 53:29) and Euan Tebbutt (who recovered from a minor “sit down” to finish 4^th in 54:49) the men’s squad was able to hold onto the trophy with a combined time of 2:41:31, enough to beat Oxf*rd’s effort of 2:43:50, despite a fast ride from Matthew Coulson, who won overall with a 52:26.

As a result of their performances, half-blues have therefore been awarded to the top three riders from the men’s and women’s events! Congratulations also go to Jack Brown, who earns another Full Blue, having already completed the remaining criteria earlier this season.

Position	Competitor	Time
2	Elspeth Grace	01:01:26
4	Zoe Burrell	01:02:12
5	Rebekah Nash	01:04:06

Position	Competitor	Time
2	Jack Brown	00:53:03
3	Jack Kellam	00:53:29
4	Euan Tebbutt	00:54:59
5	Timothy Welsh	00:55:32
8	Fabio Albertani	00:56:18
8	Joris Witstok	00:56:18
11	Joseph Adlam-Cook	00:56:52
12	Tom Hale	00:56:54
13	Sam Massey	00:57:17
15	Joe Lunn	01:00:48
16	Tom Wade	01:02:14
17	Matt Bryan	01:07:25

National 24 Hour TT Report

Posted on 22nd July 202122nd July 2021

This past weekend Tim Welsh was representing Cambridge University Cycling Club in the National 24 hour TT championships put on by the Mersey Roads cycling club. It was set to be an absolute scorcher, with the Met Office warning that it could be the hottest weekend of the year so far with no clouds and high humidity. Undeterred, Tim took to the start line along with 63 other competitors (11 out of the original 75 started chose not to even start the day). The course for the 24hrs was quite complicated, to ensure that riders were on different routes that were safer for different parts of the day and to make things more simple for the timekeepers at the finish. The majority of the course centred around the Prees Heath roundabout which was part of the main day circuit and the night circuit. After his start time at 13:26, Tim started the leg of the race to get to the main circuits (which of course required climbing directly uphill for the first 10 miles).

Within 15 minutes of the start, tragedy struck. Tim hit a pothole and the clamp on his right aero bar (clip-ons on his road bike) entirely snapped. With the aerobar now dangling from his handlebars it took a few moments to gather his thoughts. Luckily he had packed some gaffa tape, so he phoned his support crew who gave him hand ups of strips of gaffa tape which he used the wrap the bars together. Somehow, he managed to get the setup reasonably stable and carried on with gaffa taped bars for the first 7 hours until he took his first stop and had the bars and mount cable-tied more solidly.

Despite the bumpy start, Tim was getting on very well. The heat was getting to everyone, with loads of people (including multiple previous champions) deciding to pull out within the first day section. Tim however, was doing great. His support crew – Julia, Alex, and Steve – did everything they could to keep him fed and cool, handing up bottles full of electrolytes and sugar every 18 miles and ice packs to put down his skinsuit. His heart rate was skyrocketing the first 6 hours in the heat, but he felt good and carried on – managing to cover the first 112.45 miles in 5^th place with a speed of 22.49mph.

After the first 112.45 miles on relatively busy A roads, the race moved onto the more relaxed Quina Brook circuit, which featured a bit more rolling terrain and even some nice little lanes through some local farms. Tim fared well on this section of the course, fuelling often with rice cakes and energy bars, and even managed to creep up into 3^rd place overall before moving onto the night section.

Running a race through the night is a difficult task, and it requires a course that is reasonably smooth but also had little traffic. The night section for this race was a slightly mixed bag for Tim. He of course had no problem in the dark, probably due to his countless audax rides he has done through the night in much worse conditions on much smaller roads, but there were certainly more lorries than would have been desirable. That being said, Tim was still rolling well – covering the first dark 50 night miles in 2:15 (22.2mph). Things slowed a little bit from there, but never significantly. Around 2 am, Tim’s stomach started to tense up a bit – maybe due to the rapid ingestion of caffeine pills chased with an energy drink and antacids, or maybe due to not having enough solid food in the early hours of the morning – but this caused him to take a 35 minute stop to involuntarily empty the contents of his stomach and try to collect himself and recover. Being a stubborn person, Tim carried on for the remaining 3 hours on the night circuit, albeit at a slightly slower pace.

Around 7 am, Tim was one of the last riders to be moved back onto the Quina Brook circuit, where the first lap he still was moving relatively slow (by his self-imposed standards). After one lap around Quina, he took another short break to get some more solid food in, cover his legs in deep heat, and swap the clear visor for the sun visor on his aero helmet. After that break, things started to perk up. Tim started picking up the pace again and was looking a lot better than he was at 3 am. After completing 5 more laps of Quina, Tim was one of the first riders to move towards to finish circuit near Wrexham.

This was Tim’s first time ever riding in Wales, something he hoped to have done already in the 3 years he’s been in the UK, but nevertheless, at least this was a notable first ride to do in Wales. The race crossed into Wales on the A525, and of course, as soon as the “Croeso i Gymru” sign appeared the roads turned into a vertical wall (or so it felt). The rest of the commute over to the finish circuit was equally hilly and draining, or maybe it was just the previous 21hrs and 420+ miles in the legs. After the transit over, Tim made it onto the finishing circuit in 6^th place with ~430 miles covered in the first 21:20.

The finishing circuit was an 8.18 mile lap around the lovely Wrexham Industrial Estate, with 4 timekeepers spaced out around the circuit to mark riders once they finish their 24 hours. Something obviously ticked for Tim in the final 2.5 hours, because all the tiredness and soreness seemed to drop away and he went full gas and even managed to consistently get negative splits across the 7 finishing laps he completed! Because of the shorter circuit, it also meant there were more supporters dotted out around the lap, and they were clearly excited by the speed Tim was moving as it seemed like pretty much every group of people screamed at him as he passed. In the last 3 hours, Tim didn’t manage to eat any solid food, but the carb drinks, countless gels, and most importantly the yells of support pushed him on.

Going into the last hour, Tim was determined to squeeze out every last bit of energy he could and was out of the saddle sprinting up every climb, and tucking into his most aero position to hit up to 30mph on the straight and flat sections. The final lap was his fastest one of all, averaging over 23.5mph – not bad for the end of a 24-hour ride!

In the end, Tim eked out 487.70 miles, securing him 4^th place in the nation (3^rd male). His original goal was to beat the Cambridge University record of 442.66 miles, and he absolutely smashed it. For his first TT over 100 miles, Tim and all of us at CUCC are pretty pleased with the result – especially on such a hot day where only 37 of the original 64 finished. Also a massive thank you has to go out to Julia, Alex, and Steve who were an absolutely stellar support team, they did everything they could to keep the pedals turning for Tim and it wouldn’t have been possible without them.

Tim is recovering and as always is already scheming for his next massive ride (although maybe it’ll be at a more relaxed pace). Onwards!

BUCS 25 Report

Posted on 30th April 20214th May 2021

After another long hiatus from racing, on Sunday 18th April, we were finally back in action as hosts for this year's BUCS 25. Sadly, with Oxford unable to compete this year, it wasn't to be the Varsity match – but with a full start sheet of 120 riders, including plenty of 'hitters' desperate to get some early season racing under their belt, there was still plenty up for grabs.

The club had a strong squad out with over 20 members pinning on numbers, and plenty racing in their first ‘open’. After a long winter of training that had seen many new members flogging themselves in the weekly team time trials on Zwift, it was exciting to see how many would go – especially having lost a number of racing stalwarts in the last couple of years.

With sunny conditions on the local E33/25 course, fast times were expected, and so it proved: the days when a 52 or a sub-hour ride could win the men’s and women’s competitions respectively are now long gone!

With Jack Kellam’s Citroën parked up on a grassy verge for a socially-distanced basecamp, our early riders made their way over to the race course, ready to swap out wheels, pin on numbers and warm up for their efforts. Ottoline Martin (1:16:16, 36^th) was first rider off, followed by Anne-Marie Bowring (1:09:29, 29th), Clare Jackson and Zoe Burrell also in the women’s field. With the latter two having only been on their new TT bikes for under a week, their eventual finishing times of 1:06:29 (Clare, 23^rd) and 1:04:41 (Zoe, 19^th) were super impressive, and a sign of their really exciting potential.

Anna Harrison (1:02:46, 15^th) and Rebekah Nash (1:03:11, 16^th) followed shortly after, putting in super rides to help support one of our strongest all-round performances in the women’s field for a few seasons. This was capped by Elspeth Grace, whose transformation from cyclo-crosser to top-tier tester now appears all but complete. With a time of 1:00:54 that would have readily netted a podium in years recently past, Elspeth finished 8^th in a very strong field – keep an eye out at national events later this year.

The final podium saw Francesca Hall (Loughborough) take the win with a flying 56:35, followed by Lucy Gadd (Southampton) in 58:44, and Tamsin Miller (Exeter) in 59:44.

In the men’s event, first Cambridge rider off was Joris Witstok on his lovely Cervélo/Spinergy road bike TT set-up, who showed that #JorisWatts on Zwift translated effectively into reality, flying round to finish 40^th in a 57:19. Tom Hale followed, starting early so he could hand over his TT bike to his UCL-based brother. In his first proper 25, Tom smashed a 55:30 that would place him 26^th and as 3^rd Cambridge rider overall.

George Spooner then headed out on his road bike, gurning round Botty to a very fast 55:52. One of the rides of the day, though, goes to Joe Adlam-Cook who – undeterred by a last minute snapped rear cable – rode a bodged, 1x single speed set-up for 25 miles, still finishing with a 1:01:47.

The two Sams – Massey and Gerrard – were also riding their first opens, and finished next to each other in the final standings, the latter (57:52, 49^th) narrowly squeezing out the former (58:05, 50^th). The triathletes followed, with Fabio Albertani finding a space on the start sheet to ride a creditable 58:17, before Luke McCarron put in a solid ride of 57:51. Our audax and ultra-distance specialist Tim Welsh was up next, and turned up the intensity for a very strong 57:24 (42^nd) on a road bike and tri-bars set-up.

We were then into the squeaky end of the startsheet. Despite a healthy dose of last minute stress – it wouldn’t be CUCC at BUCS without it – a rapid wheel and cassette swap saw Jack Brown make his start time. Clearly unfatigued from racing a 25 on the same course the day before, and claiming not to have done an interval session in 18 months, Jack stormed to a 52:19 that placed him 8^th (and a time that would have at least secured a podium in years past).

Jack Kellam and Toby Antippas followed with a 55:40 and 1:03:17 respectively, but it was Euan Tebbutt on his new P5 super bike that put in the star performance with 54:11 that saw him finish 19^th.

Having stacked the podium in 2019, the men’s squad couldn’t quite repeat the feat two years later. The win was taken by George Peden (Leeds) with a 50:34, with Frederik Scheske (Exeter) and Sebastian Garry (Nottingham) coming 2^nd and 3^rd with 50:56 and 51:09 respectively. The top 7 all finished with times that would have comfortably won the event in previous years, showing quite how high the standard has risen in UK time trialling over the last few years.

Although the club weren’t quite able to match the results that we’ve become accustomed to in BUCS events over recent years, it was hard to come away with anything other than massive encouragement from the strength and breadth of new talent in the club, many of whom (including plenty who were unlucky to not get starts) are certainly going to be up in the sharp end of results sheets in the months and years to come.

A final, but incredibly important thanks go to Events Secretary James Quigley for putting on the event in really difficult circumstances, as well as everyone who helped out in marshalling and timekeeping: James’ dad, and Elspeth’s parents in particular! It was clear how grateful other universities were that we’d provided the opportunity for racing to return, and at quite how smoothly the day went by.

With Varsity still to come at a later date this year, and the season only just getting underway, keep your eyes peeled for CUCC skinsuits at time trials around the country!

(Image credit: Kane Smith and CUCC's very own Nordin Ćatić)

CUCC Strava art

Posted on 25th March 202125th March 2021

CUCC Hill Climb Report

Posted on 9th November 20209th November 2020

Luckily the conditions on the day were excellent, with plenty of sunshine and even a slight tailwind! A notable improvement from the conditions at our previous event, the Freshers’ TT, as those who were there I’m sure would attest.

In the women’s field, the competition was so close we had a draw for 1st place! Elspeth Grace and Mathilde Pauls both smashing out an impressive 2 minutes and 1 second. Hot on their heels was Zoe Burrel, showing off some great multi-disciplinary talent by following up on her 2nd place at the Freshers’ Time Trial and securing the next podium spot only 3 seconds behind. And the final podium spot went to Anne-Marie Bowring with a time of 2 minutes and 17 seconds; excellent efforts all around!

Likewise, in the men’s field the competition was well and truly on with only 2 and 1 seconds separating 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively. Euan Tebbut charged to victory this year with a time of 1:40, just ahead of Ollie Moseley with a 1:42 and Joe Adlam-Cook, once again taking the title of fastest fresher, with a time of 1:43. Off the podium there was no lack of rapid times either with time differences between places often being just a single second showing every watt/kilogram counted. Unfortunately, our hill climb specialists George and Craig, who both put in stellar performances at the National HC recently, couldn’t be there this time as they tired themselves out on their – admittedly quite long (70 miles) and scenic – ride over to the course.

James Quigley, our events secretary, concludes: "Special thanks to Elspeth and Euan who not only competed (and did rather well!) but also helped do timekeeping for portions of the event. And thank you to everyone who came to compete for making the event as fun and successful as it was, I hope everyone had a great time, or at least as much as possible when doing a hill climb!"

Naturally, credits are also in order for James himself, who has managed to organise two great club races this term, despite limitations and a premature end to club rides and other activities, as the club moves to alternatives like riding in pairs and on virtual platforms.

2020 Kit Design

Posted on 30th October 202030th October 2020