Mud in the East at last! Milton and the end of season relays

The east of England is the driest part of the UK, so we get ‘proper cross’ conditions (i.e. mud) much less often than the rest of the country. But the last couple of Eastern races have redressed the balance! The last formal round of the Eastern Cyclocross league was held at Milton Country Park (just outside Cambridge) on 26 January, and the season in our region wrapped up with the fun team relay event organised by Colchester Rovers at the Colchester Sports Park on 9 February

Eastern League Round 10 – Milton

Yesterday was Round 10 and the last league race in the Eastern calendar, it was held at Milton Country Park in Cambridge, hosted by Cambridge Junior Cycle Club (CJCC). The Country Park with its tree lined ridge bounding it, makes for a superb venue and probably the most technically demanding course in our league. It has almost everything you could want as a cyclocrosser, mud, slippy corners, greasy off-cambers, treacherous roots, steep up and downhills, logs and barely time to get your breath back. These were the thoughts of Will Tate after his recce on Saturday; “The good news is that there is hardly any mud apart from 2 boggy hollows – one of which you can shoot through, but the other is followed by steep bank so it’s not rideable, the bad news is that there are at least 5 or 6 of these steep banks to get up, and many of them are off-camber or traversed by numerous tree roots; I wasn’t able to get up any of them!”(which may say as much about me as the course!”
Chapeau to CJCC for putting on such a fantastic event, they had cut and prepared a wonderfully inventive track for us all, which seemed to take in every feature available to them, providing a twisting, turning, up and down rollercoaster of an event to enjoy.
And the best sight of the day was the cavalry charge of the Under 10’s Race which had the biggest entry the league has seen, 60 enthusiastic youngsters were on the start grid and 59 of them finished to collect their packet of Haribo, quite remarkable, well done Cambridge for attracting so many, the future is very bright.
And so to the adult races and the Wheelers who took part. This week I’ll start with Sam Brook who is a first year Junior racing with the Seniors, what a season Sam has had, he’s the youngest in the league, yet has consistently been near the front of the races and yesterday was no exception. The rain had held off for all of the races up to the Ladies starting, by the time Sam’s race started it was lashing down and quickly altered the way in which the course was riding. Sam mastered the tricky conditions, riding many of the parts that others couldn’t to finish 13th overall, but more importantly 1st Junior, Chapeau Sam, here’s to an even better season next time.
Megan Free was again our sole representative in the Ladies race, she wasn’t looking forward to the course or racing, but, what a race she had finishing 8th overall and 4th Senior.
In the combined V40/60 race the Wheelers were represented by 6 V60’s and this was without Paul Chapman, who is on his winter sabbatical, skiing! There were 74 starters, 34 of whom were V60+ and 6 of those were V70+, there’s life in the Old Dogs yet. The race attracted riders from outside the Region, notably Glen Coltman, 3rd V60 at the National Championships and Victor Barnett the current World Masters V80 Champion. So Paul Watson our best rider, was in good company at the front of the V60 field, the V40’s had been given a 90 second start, so that the lead racers from the V60’s didn’t catch them too quickly, as a lot of the track was very narrow making passing difficult. Paul rode a superb race, keeping pace with Coltman to finish 2nd in category and a brilliant 21st overall, Peter Golding crossed the line in 6th, but a lap down on Paul as the V40 1st placed rider had lapped him [Peter], Nick Rush was next, but special mention must be made of his start, as he was in the top half dozen after the first tricky twists and turns of the track, he had his best race of the season after that to cross the line 11th in category. Next came Tony Read, who had been a doubt up until the last moment, but he relishes his battles, especially with Will Tate, buoyed by this, they were both spurred on, Tony getting the better of Will this time as they crossed the line 19th and 22nd. Finally Nick Gilford making a rare appearance for the Wheelers, completed the sextet in 25th.
In the V50 race Simon Christie saved his best race of the season for Milton, he had a storming ride, revelling in the conditions to finish 8th. Stephen Brook was the next to finish, riding consistently for 24th, Iain Milligan in his first full Cross season has ridden really well throughout, today being no exception for 33rd and finally but no where near last, Karl Hale finished in 43rd, he was really pleased with the way he rode!
So what a great day out it was, thanks again for all of the support from the Wheelers family and friends, for the shouts of encouragement from those who had already raced or were about to race.
Great to see and hear Barry Denny supporting and to see a welcome return to racing in the league from Matt Denny and Adi Grimwood.
I started off by saying “They think it’s all over….” Well not quite, the end of season relays and prize presentation will be held at the Colchester Northern Gateway on Sunday 9th February, if you’d like to go and ride for the Wheelers you’d be more than welcome. Basically it’s teams of 3, you ride a lap as fast as you can, tag a team mate, who does the same and they tag another, it’s a great event.
Also the 9th is the last race of the Leicestershire League and this of us who have joined that league too, will be at Mallory Park in Leicester.
More on the final league standings next week.

Eastern League – end of season relays

The Eastern Cyclocross League officially ended today with the Team and Mixed Relay events at Colchester, along with the end of season awards.
The Colchester league race was held early in the season and gave us fast racing. Not so today! The ground doesn’t drain that well, so we were treated to plenty of mud … some skiddy and some deep and gloopy (that’s technical CX terminology).
Today’s event comprised a Team Relay (3 riders, each from the same club), the Youth Mixed Relay, then the Adult Mixed Relay (riders from different clubs). The WSW team this morning was Simon Paul Christie , Kevin Burton and Samuel Brook , with Stephen Brook an honorary SDCC rider for the morning along with Paul Moss and Rob Smith. The WSW team were running as high as 3rd place, but Sam collected some course tape in his drivetrain and had to run a large part of the course – the team eventually finished ninth.
In the mixed relay, Simon was partnered with Andrew Cockburn (the Men’s Vet40 league winner this year) and Julie Taplin from Colchester Rovers, their team finishing in 7th. Stephen and Kevin were partnered with Oliver Beale (Junior Men’s league winner this year), managing to finish in 8th, one place behind Simon’s team.
Sam was teamed up with Trevor Child (Colchester Rovers) and John Swindells (Iceni Velo), and brought home the win, overtaking Ben Hallam from the 2nd placed team on the final lap.
As last year, it was a great way to end the season – huge thanks to Simon Wilson and the rest of the Colchester Rovers team for hosting us.