Cross is back for 2024-25 !

It may still be warm and sunny, but the cross season is now well underway, with the first two rounds of the Eastern Cyclocross league completed.

The traditional season-opener for the Eastern League is at Springfield, hosted by Chelmer CC, where we had 12 Wheelers riding. The forecasted monsoon didn’t materialise but luckily it wasn’t as hot as last year. The course was dry and very fast as usual.
First race for the WSW posse was the Vet50 Men, featuring Kevin Burton (back from an injury sustained in a MTB crash), Simon Paul Christie , Iain Milligan, Karl Hale and Stephen Brook . Simon was flying, finishing in 13th, while Stephen had two crashes on the first lap but recovered a few places after switching to the spare MTB.
Next up were the Vet60 crew, comprising Paul Watson, new crosser Robert Duncombe, Nick Rush, Will Tate and Paul Chapman (who told me later he wouldn’t have minded doing an extra lap had the leaders not caught him!). Congratulations to Paul Watson on winning the Vet60 category.
Megan Free was our sole rider in the Women’s race, finishing 5th Senior woman and 12th overall.
Last up was Sam Brook in the Senior/Junior Men’s race who had a strong start but then had a crash in the lower field, working his way back up to 19th overall and 5th Junior.

On to the 2nd weekend of the CX Season ….
Too many choices for 15 September; it was the second round of the Eastern Cyclocross League and the first round of the Leicestershire League, the local league race was held at a new venue in South Essex, the Lambourne End Centre, whilst the Leicestershire race was raced in Western Park, Leicester.
It was a relatively short drive from Bury St Edmunds down the A14/M11 to Harlow and then through the leafy lanes of Epping Forest to the venue at Lambourne End, which is an outdoor development centre for adults. Just a note on those leafy lanes, it’s impossible to get past a well drilled group of cyclists and the ‘fly tipping’ in almost every passing place is horrendous, but what a venue !
There were 8 Wheelers who made the trip to the south side of the M25 to try out the new course and hopefully to sample a Sausage Bap as they made their own sausages on site. There was ample parking in an adjacent field, plenty of toilets and even showers, a small trek to get to the ‘Sign On’, but hey it was a lovely day. Cycling Club Hackney were the hosts and they put together a really great testing circuit making good use of 2 fields, where they created several switchback (180 degree turns), which in the top field were on the flat, but in the bottom, either up or downhill, which proved to be a great test of bike handling skills. The link between the 2 fields was via some narrow twisting single track through the woods and a very narrow bridge, with a long uphill drag each lap.
First off for the Wheelers were Simon Christie, Stephen Brook and Iain Milligan who joined the Club during the closed season, it’s great to see him in the Fire Engine Kit. Simon is having a barn storming start to the league and didn’t disappoint again yesterday, starting quickly and he maintained a fantastic average time for each of his 7 laps coming in 14th in a very competitive race, which was bolstered by racers from the London League. Stephen also had a really great race, he got away from the start slower than Simon who had a more favourable grid position after his 10th place the week before, which meant that he would have been behind the slow traffic through the first switch backs and then the single track through the woods, but after the first lap in which he was about 40 seconds slower than Simon he lapped consistently and his last lap of 7 matched Simons fastest, a great finish result however of 34th, room for improvement next week. Iain’s first lap was 11 seconds slower than Stephen, which meant that he too was also held up in the queues through the tight corners, but thereafter his lap times were all within 3 seconds of each other, a truly consistent race crossing the line in 44th place of the 62 starters, Iain was one of 5 riders lapped by the winner in the finishing straight, so didn’t get to ride a 7th lap. It just illustrates what an advantage it is to have a good position on the start grid, those 10 seconds are what might have been.
Next off was the combined V40/V60 race, as Simon and Stephen both gained a year in age since last season, we had no V40 representatives, but we did have 3 on the V60 start, who were told by the Commissaire team that they would be giving the V40’s a 90 second head start ! So once Peter Golding, Nick Rush and Paul Chapman were gridded, the race was on to catch the back markers of the V40. Peter for once got a descent start and managed to get to the first tight corner before Nick and Paul’s start wasn’t too shabby either. Once those first tight 180 corners were out of the way it was into the woods and the single track, where overtaking was almost impossible, so your position going in was invariable how you came out, unless someone collided with a tree in front of you ! Peter was in a race long battle with the first V70, he didn’t have the speed to get past him finishing 3 seconds in arrears in 5th, and was lapped by the V40 race leader at the very last, which meant he only got to ride 6 of the 7 laps, Nick after the slow traffic through those first corners lapped very consistently getting used to new wheels and tyres and was really unlucky to be lapped only 7 seconds from the line, cutting his race short to 5 laps, he was 52nd over 3 minutes in front of the next finisher. Paul was the slowest of the 3 away, and raced conservatively, perhaps being a little too polite to those who wanted to lap him, which slowed him up a little, but of his 5 laps, his last 2 were 30 seconds faster than his 2nd and 3rd, he was delighted to record negative splits and finished 54th of the 59 rider field.
Megan Free had a blistering start in the Ladies race, getting up to 5th place from her second row start, but then during that second lap, dropped her chain 3 times, I think she may be having a word with her mechanic (who snapped his own chain on the last lap !), however those stops aside, she too was very consistent, keeping her lap times very similar for 13th place, and happily beating ex Wheeler Nicki Davis in a sprint finish, more to come next week, I’m sure.
And last but by no means least was Sam Brook, starting only his second Senior/Junior race, well actually all of the race was delayed by 5 minutes because of an IT faff by the Judge, a certain Peter Golding, who lost the page on the Tablet and had to be rescued by someone far more conversant with these things, crisis averted the riders were gridded and off they went for their 60 minute race. Sam had a fantastic start, just outside the top 10, lapping faster than any of the other Wheelers before him at under 6 minutes per lap, and having a really close battle with his contemporary’s. As I was recording the lap positions I saw Sam’s face when he realised he still had 5 laps to go, and then he had a bad lap, but the young man rallied well, to get close to his early lap times, yet still managed to finish 15th overall and 4th Junior, it’s a steep learning curve for anyone going from a 30 minute race to an hour, I’m sure Sam will have learnt much from his efforts.

Meanwhile up in Leicester, Karl Hale had decided to enter the first race of the Leicestershire season, having joined their league as well as ours this year. The advantage of joining another league, is that when it come to gridding, you are gridded using your National Rankings or previous results from that league, unlike without being a league member when you are always gridded at the back. Interestingly the Eastern League Committee will give non league racers a favourable grid position, if they are asked, but never better than the 3rd row ! Karl has written his own piece on his exploits, in the V50/V60+ race, enjoy the read.
“Can’t believe they put me on the second row, they must have thought I was some relation to Simon Hale (one of the best V50’s in the Country) so a bit tasty at cross. I was able for the first time ever in a race to stretch my legs from the start and found myself in about 5th place before the hurdles, which were placed on a hill immediately after a tight right hand corner, that’s when it started to unravel. I got off my bike to hurdle and the next thing I knew, someone had crashed into it and took it out of my hands, so I was fumbling to pick it up, with riders trying to pass me, loosing places left right and centre. But I remounted and only lost a few more places before the single track in the woods, I held my own through a pinch point with some massive roots and I’m sure if I’d been riding my MTB it wouldn’t have fit through the gaps in the trees ! I then lost a few more places on that lap as the people who should have been gridded in front of me came through. On the second lap I’d just climbed a steep hillock with a sharp left turn and a down hill to a sketchy severe bump, when a rider from behind called “on your left” meaning he wanted to overtake me on my left, and he belted towards the bump. Well, his back wheel went over the top of him and he spilled onto the grass, I was still carrying speed, but kept the back end down and managed to miss his bike, but didn’t miss him, causing me to crash and my back wheel cartwheeled over me and I ended up up a long way forward of the bike, by the time I’d got back to and on the bike and started the steep ascent there were at least 10 more riders who overtook me, including the guy who caused the crash. There was nothing but single tracks in the woods and a lot of gnarly roots, I’m not sure if we would have got away with some of that as course designers in the Eastern League. I heard the bell as I was on my way back to the first single track and fully expected to be lapped somewhere on the course, I’d made it to the final two corners before the finish line and had just passed a back marker as though he was standing still, only to be passed by Simon Hale and Nick Popham (another top rider) who were in a battle for the win, so I was denied a 6th lap by 5 seconds, finally finishing 42nd out of the 69.”

The next Eastern League race is the Neil Pears Memorial race on Saturday 21st September at Colchester Northern Gateway, hope to see more of you there.
Thanks to Teresa Rush and Sara Hale for the photos