Michaelmas Retrospective – CUCC Hill Climb
04.11.17
The first CUCC Hill Climb in club memory was held on a wet day in early November, but the damp weather didn’t stop 34 entrants lining up to take on the mighty Gog Magog. A strenuous 900m at 4.2% reaching the heady heights of 67m, it’s about the best Cambridge has to offer. Of course, that was no reason to take it easy! However, the committee were disappointed by the lack of vomiting at the top – clearly the racers weren’t trying quite hard enough. Ffion James took the win (and the QOM! (from Laura Massey!)) for the women in 1:53.1 with President Jess close behind in 1:53.8. Alice Bittleston completed the women’s podium. John Hale stormed the win in the men’s competition in 1:32.6, with Espresso Library’s John William Gull 3 seconds down at 1:35.4 – was he weighed down by the Zipp disc? We will never know. Tom Simpson was first club member in 1:37.6.
Honourable mentions go to Felix Barker (6th) and Luke Fisher (18th) for riding fixed, Felix on his pursuit setup for BUCS track and Luke on his Simpson-built machine (shameless plug), and to Tom Wade for riding town-bike.
BUCS Hill Climb Results, Report and Photos
After missing last year’s event in Stirling (lovely spot, a very long way from Cambridge), CUCC were back with a strong presence in 2017. The race was held on October 28th on Pea Royd Lane in Stocksbridge near Sheffield, a steep sub-3 minute climb that was used (in a 400m longer format) for the 2014 Nationals. The women were first up, with President Jess Atkinson coming in 14th and Carrie Bedingfield following in 17th in a competitive field. Felix Barker (8th), Seb Dickson (13th) and Rob Walker (17th) made up the Cambridge men’s team who placed second on the day, while Tom Simpson had their backs in 18th. Toby Cowell was 36th, Luke Fisher 59th, fresher Jack Brown managed 70th despite having his start botched and Seán Irving was 83rd. Full results can be found below.
BUCS Road Race Results
The Women’s Race
The women’s race started at 10am, so Jess and Lottie chose to drive up to York on the Friday night rather than have a 5am start and 3 hour drive pre-race on the Saturday. A course recce on the Saturday morning was rather eye-opening as it had a series of short, steep climbs ramping up to 18% at points. This was to be Lottie’s second ever road race (the first being BUCS RR in 2015), but Jess has a lot of road race experience spanning seven years and this was one of the hardest courses she’d seen. The plan was to stick in the bunch as long as possible and make a call at the end if they were still at the head of the race.