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It looks to have been a great national hill climb championship up in the North East. Both Dan Evans ASSOS Equipe UK and Joscelin Lowden (Lewes Wanderers CC) making worthy champions.

It’s not quite the same watching results drip through on Twitter – compared to actually racing and being there. Sitting this year out reminded me of what the championship means.

Champions

Photo Velo UK – Dan Evans

• Men: Dan Evans ASSOS Equipe UK 03:54.3
• Women: Joscelin Lowden (Lewes Wanderers CC) 4:53.4
• Junior Junior Male: George Kimber (CS Dynamo)  4:13.9
• Female: Corinne Side (Racing Chance Foundation)    5:19.0
• Male Team: B38-Underpin Racing (K. Savage, P. Clark, Andy Nichols)  12:31.7
• Female Team: Racing Chance Foundation (Corinne Side, Tamsin Vicary, Heather Bamforth) 18:08.5

Dan has been a very consistent hill climb performer of the past few years. On hills above two minutes, he has rarely been beaten. It’s an impressive open campaign and becomes the first man to take a second championship since Dan Fleeman in 2010. They say hill climbs is a young man’s sport, but a little like myself, Dan came to the sport relatively late. All I can say 36 is a very good age to become national hill climb championship (I was 36 in 2013). Can Dan win again? Well, it doesn’t get any easier as you approach the big 40.

2nd place Adam Kenway (Raleigh GC) put up a spirited title defensive; perhaps next year will be more to his liking. Proving that hill climbs is still a young man’s game, Kieran Savage (Team B38) must be pleased to get third spot, whilst still an espoir. I always feel a certain empathy for people who just finish outside the podium. Jo Clark has consistently finished in the top 5, but is collecting a few near misses. This year just one or two seconds was the difference. Interestingly Clark was the only rider to beat Evans in an open event (on the Rake) – another rider who will be looking forward to the short climb up Shelsey Walsh. With strong competition, there were many very good hill climbers within 10-15 seconds of a podium place. Honourable mention to first Vet man Niall Paterson Velo Club Cumbria. Next year, I might be able to provide some competition in the old man category.

Joscelin Lowden Velo UK

In the women’s event, no former champion meant the event was open, but the quality of the field was as strong as ever. I don’t think the women’s podium has been so close – with just 2 seconds separating the top three. It was good to see Hayley Simmonds enter the event and get so close. She is a world class rider and time triallist, but, at the end of a long road season, the rigours of four minute British hill climb make it a real challenge compared to what she is used to riding. Mary Wilkinson (Yorkshire Road Club) produced a superb ride to finish 2nd. After a good open season, Joscelin Lowden (Lewes Wanderers CC) won her first title. In this CTT report, Lowden sums up the attraction of the hill climb championship.

“Some people question why I would come all the way up here to ride for five minutes and I start to think ‘Am I mad?’ but it’s so much more than just riding on a hill.

“It is everybody else here that makes it special for us riders: the supporters cheering us on, the course commentators, everything just makes it such a fun event and to win makes it extra special,”

The photos of the ev Continue Reading →

I’ve been waiting for something good to write about, but at this rate I may not post anything at all.

It has been a stop-start season, but mostly stop – if not stuck in reverse gear. Sometimes, I can get a few days of training, but then take 2-3 weeks off the bike.

It feels like always going back to the starting point. It’s easy to lose inspiration to ride through injury and keep starting from the same low level.

I went out a few times in Yorkshire, getting as far as Grassington.

In New York, my longest ride was 26 miles during a marathon as a lead cyclist. 26 miles at an average speed of 9.5 mph. I was knackered the next day from looking behind at the lead runner. Took days to recover.

Compared to my three-hour 26 miles, these days there are riders who can ride 25 miles in 43 minutes (35 mph) (with a little help from suitable downhill dual-carriageways).

The hill climb season is upon us but I will probably give it a miss this year – perhaps one or two local events; the national is very unlikely at the moment. The only positive thing about the hill climb season is that at least I am at racing weight – an American diet of donuts and fried breakfast has not shifted any weight despite little exercise. But, being light is only one part of the equation. I went to Brill on Saturday and felt suitably slow and unfit. It was a reminder of how much hard work it is training for hill climbs.

Of all the hill climbs, I fancy doing the Monsal Head. I think you can do one minute hill climbs without any training. I’m not sure whether this is an observation that would be supported by sports science. But, in New York, I do one hill and have trained on it every year for the past 12 years. Training involves trying to race up it as fast as I can and have kept personal best times.

This August, I set an all-time pb (since 2005) of 1.34 for Sanitation Hill – faster than 2013,2014 and 2015. This was genuinely after doing hardly any training. Maybe the tail-end of Hurricane Harvey reaching New York helped a little…

This year we have the privilege of seeing a full stage in the Tour de France from start to finish – five hours of men pedalling bicycles. It can work both ways – on ‘hilly stages’ the start of a stage can be quite exciting as breaks form, break-up and new riders try to go across. On flat sprint stages, it’s mostly a long procession of castles and vineyards – if you’re lucky. The decision to go

The decision to go into the break on a ‘Marcel Kittel sprint stage’ seems to be about a few reluctant riders pulling the short-straw over breakfast. The main entertainment is seeing the faces of the odd rider who shoots off the front and despairingly looks behind to see if anyone else will come and share the workload for the inevitable doomed 190km breakaway. The Tour de France is the pinnacle of the sport, but there is no cycle race in the world where there is so little interest in going in a breakaway. Continue Reading →

Wonder Wheels is the autobiography of British cyclist Eileen Sheridan. Originally published in 1956, it was republished in 2009 by Mercian Manuals.

Eileen Sheridan was a female cyclist who turned professional in the 1950s and successfully broke all 21 long distance time trial records – including a new record for Land’s End to John o’ Groats.

This is an excellent cycling book and gives an insight into the spirit of amateur time trials and the ‘golden age’ of British cycling in the 1940s and 1950s. Sheridan’s autobiography is fairly short, but it conveys her love of cycling, intrepid determination and cheerful disposition.

Like many people in that era, Sheridan got into cycling after becoming a leisure cyclist – joining a local club, taking part in touring rides and then graduating to racing. It was on these long club rides that she started to surprise both herself and other male cyclists with her unexpected capacity for maintaining high speed on these long rides through the Warwickshire countryside and beyond.

At the moment, there is a good degree of nostalgia about the 1950s, a nostalgia which can be misplaced. But, reading Sheridan’s book you do get a glimpse of a simpler time, where the joy of cycling and the Corinthian ethos of club life were well embedded. It’s hard not to read without an appreciation for the old style Sunday Club Run and touring – even if it is hard to relate to the austerity of the age.

After outperforming many male club members on long rides, Sheridan was encouraged to enter her first time trial – a club 10 mile TT. She almost wasn’t allowed to start (failing to meet strict the RTTC rules about all black clothes) Fortunately, a club mate lent her a regulation black jacket. And despite the oversize jacket billowing in the wind, Sheridan won her first time trial. From there, she made rapid progress becoming 25 mile and 50 mile champion in 1950. She won the newly created Best All Rounder 1950/1951; set a new record at 12 hours and was given the prestigious Birdlike Memorial Prize in 1950. Continue Reading →

The other day I was riding up Brill hill, with a nice tailwind at my back. At the steepest point of the hill, I stamped on the pedals and promptly broke the chain. Fortunately, because I was going quite slowly I stayed upright and didn’t fall on the ground.

I would like to think it was due to an extraordinary transfer of power, but it was nothing that should have broken a chain. It is the third Dura Ace chain I have broken in as many years. It is possible, I am not fixing them correctly. But I don’t think so. There was a bad change of gears just before, and then the increase in power snapped through.

I always carry a chain splitter with me. Usually as part of a multitool. I got a new multitool for Christmas and this was the first time I’d taken it out on a ride. The problem was the multitool didn’t work at all. It couldn’t move the pin in the chain even an iota. Despite standing on the multi-tool to try and get more leverage, nothing worked. I gave it up as a bad job and called a taxi. £45 for a taxi from Oakley to Oxford was an expensive bike ride. I think it’s the first time I’ve called a taxi whilst cycling, I can’t remember a previous occasion. At £45 a pop, I hope it’s another 20 years to the next one. The one crumb of comfort is that I had a tailwind on the way out from Oxford – I didn’t have to ride back into headwind but that is really clutching at straws to try and look on the bright side. Continue Reading →