Eastern Cyclo Cross League 5 - WGC Saturday 6th October 2011
Sun 07 Oct 2012
Round five of the Eastern Cross League was ran on ‘our manor’ at Stanborough Lakes WGC, by our good friends at Welwyn Wheelers. It was heartening to see almost a full turn out of North Road crossers, with only Tim Brown away on some well deserved holiday.
Two heavy nights of rain had left a lushly grassed course dripping wet. A relentless course design, with plenty of ups, lots of off camber twist-and-turns, meant a race with almost no areas that riders could get some recovery. It looked a hard course from the car park, it felt a hard course in warm up, and it was off the scale of hard during the race.
John McDowall, Dave Kiely and Steve James where all on the grid, one behind the other, in the vets plus 45 race. A good start by John and Dave meant some unaccustomed acquaintance with the leading riders during the first lap. Dave and John where then engaged in an eager contest for several laps, as both riders made some minor errors, allowing the other to nip past as they battled for North Road top dog status. It was John that blinked first, as’ Kiely Dog’ cornering with a silky finesse, metaphorically kicked cyclocross sand in his team mate’s face and built a slight lead that opened out to an insurmountable lead over the remaining laps.
Dave finished in an impressive 15th place, surely his best cross result so far. Whilst John, forced to suckle from the sour tete of defeat, came in 20th place. Steve had not felt good right from the start, and admitted at the end that he just ‘didn’t have the legs today.’ However, he still finished in a respectable 32nd place.
Hannah Ormesher was our only entrant in the ladies race. She get off to a really good start and was in fourth for most of the first lap until a really steep ascent where she conceded a couple of places carrying the bike up the slope to girls doing the same (but quicker) A second lap stumble over the hurdles cost a couple more valuable places. Hannah was then in her ‘normal’ racing position around a third up from the bottom of the field and was involved with a race to keep the same girl as from the Basildon cross battle off her tail. It looked touch-and-go, but a timely lapping by the leading rider, secured Hannah’s finishing position and meant that she could put up her pearly white Sidis and enjoy watching the guys suffering round another lap of torture. Hannah finished in ninth place in the women’s race.
Bryan Holland and Matt Harris made up our entry in the senior field that faced an hour long race. Bryan found himself on the front row of the grid, and had the good grace to look very sheepish about it. Matt as an un-fancied runner was left amongst the plebeian masses at the back. Bryan made a good start and worked hard in the first lap to take advantage of being nearer the front. Over the next three laps he battled for position with another rider as they passed each other repeatedly through the laps as different areas of the course suited one or other. At the beginning of lap five Bryan pushed hard to pass and make a gap which proved successful while also bringing him into contention with two other riders for the remaining three laps of the race. He slowly lost touch with one rider but was holding on to the other as the final lapped commenced. In a tight last lap they passed each other twice before in the final set of 180 degree turns on the grassy slopes coming in to the finish Bryan slipped through on the inside of the corner and gained that critical gap which he kept through the finish. Bryan finished 25th (One lap and 1:43 behind the winner (Dennis Lisbyed of Race Timing Solutions) which represents his best result of the league to date.
Matt was having some additional battles with the course, a puncture during the warm up, and a heavy fall half way round the first lap made the challenges inherent during the race that bit harder. Matt early in his cyclocross learning curve came in 59th.
Young Joe Kiely, on the back of a podium finish at a London League event last weekend, and a trouncing of the field in the local Cubs race, was in action in the under 12’s. A crash cost our future Sven Nys some time, but cornering fearlessly he came home in 10th place overall and was third in the under 10’s.