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February 6, 2010 | 04:05 GMT
The finishers: Angela, Cliff, and Jennie - proud and knackered!
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On Saturday 23rd January a team of ten Beds Road Riders took part in a road race at the Hog Hill closed circuit. If you'd like to join in with the exploits of the road race team this year - whatever your ability - then contact roadrace@bedsroad.org to assure that you are kept in the know.
If you want to read about the exploits of last weekend then click here.
Beds Road take on Hoggs Hill
Saturday 23 January 2010, and 10 of our members make the short trip down to North East London to the Redbridge Cycle Centre, and the notorious circuit race organised up Hoggs Hill.
Led by Club Captain Leo Bonito, the 10 include - Angela Lewry, Claire Simons and Jenni Lake making their first appearance in closed circuit racing, also first timers Chairman Cliff Dixon and Gary Moore. Veterans in comparison Graham Laming, Mark Anstee and Rocky Kumar, and youngster Andy Paisley venture out to the circuit.
All arrived with plenty of time before the 11:45 registration time and have a brief walk down the infamous hill in the damp crisp morning air with a slight headwind. Nerves are frayed, the course looks…interesting!!!
Registration is soon completed and the bikes set up, with just enough time for a quick lap to shake off the dead legs from driving, and a quick check on tyre pressures – Angela and Jenni still running 50 psi from the icy rides the other week, this is soon resolved with this boosted to over 100 psi.
Then - problem, Leo has a puncture – he grabs a spare kindly lent from Graham, and proceeds to remove the front tyre at the side of the track with the best tool he can find for the job not being able to locate the usual levers and having a very tight fitting tyre, luckily his years of experience allow this to completed just before the start time, and within seconds the gallant 10 are off making up a cat 4 field of 28 riders. Cause of the puncture easily identied as a large sharp flint picked up from somewhere on the track.
First lap down and the pace is fast in places, the front riders trying to create a break to split the pack, Mark and Leo stay with them, the other members of the team are alternating position as they wind themselves around and up and over the hill for the first time. All taking the corners within themselves settling nerves and slowly warming to the task ahead. Lap two Leo looking comfortable, others less so, early showing from Mark has taken its toll already or maybe hes playing safe and hes sensibly back with the bunch.
Then, disaster – it’s all over for Leo, puncture to the rear halfway around the circuit and his race is over. Pretty unlucky to get two punctures within such a small timeframe, then we look up and Gary is slowing, he too is punctured and stops, not good for beds road, then we look up again and Mark has also punctured then Rocky slows out on the far side of the circuit – another puncture, four men down already this is terrible. Whilst we are discussing this in rolls Andy who decides to call it a day as injury is hampering his efforts, could this get any worse for the club.
So out on the track we are left with Cliff, Claire, Graham, Angela and Jenni in that order as they negotiate the hill for the next 30 mins now settling into the race. Unfortunately, due to the large number of drop outs and differing abilities it is not possible for any groups to form, so in effect they are now taking part in what can be described as the time trial from hell, although the training these five have put in they were all riding well within their abilities and comfortable taking on the course. I see Claire go by on the hill again and notice that her front tyre appears to be flat, surely not another one, and going round the fast top corner – this is confirmed, Claire manages to take the corner but is now aware of the problem, and her race is over at the bottom of the circuit, long walk back with the bike on her shoulder, real shame as she was doing extremely well, whilst my attention is on this, I then realise that Graham has not been through, the same puncture fate taking his ride from him, now 7 out of 10 club riders were out of the race and it was all down to Cliff, Angela and Jenni to finish.
This information is fed out to the riders and their concentration then shifts to finishing the race, pretty soon the countdown of laps remaining is released after the leading rider has raced for 45 mins – 5 laps left. 5 very hard energy sapping laps for the fighting three. Now only 16 riders left in the race, within the next 5 laps another 2 riders had also punctured – so just half the field left at the finish.
When the leading rider has finished the race the riders then cross the line to finish the race, so Cliff steams in, followed closely by Jenni and then Angela. Its over an hour of hard riding, well done you three, superb effort, first time out and to finish strongly am mightily impressed.
We wait around whilst the other cat race is on, awaiting the final results, they arrive – Cliff finished Ninth, so first race first points – great stuff, Angela and Jenni finishing 13th and 14th respectively, or as I like to call it first and second female finishers.
Was very impressed with this kind of racing, very well run, good friendly field, no issues about anyone taking anyone else off or aggressive riding or attitude. The hill is hard, a long drag upto the full ascent, meaning that you possibly take it on every 3 to 4 minutes, so not many chances for recovery and you will be using your small chainring most of the time unless you have very strong legs or like pedalling very slowly.
Well done team for all taking it, commiserations to those that didn’t finish the race, next time hopefully, and hopefully I will be able to join in the punishment, although looking at how hard this I do not expect to finish that high up the field – more suited to a lighter rider than myself. And, well done again to Cliff, Angela and Jenni on your great ride, awesome effort – very proud and pleased for you.
I would however recommend this to all club members to give it a go, but be prepared to work extremely hard for the hour, you will be pushed very, very hard, you have to be a very good climber and have a fast recovery rate to take this on, and do not expect to be that competitive with the front guys, most of the field take this track on, on a regular basis.
See the photos.
Many thanks to Mark Gray for submitting this story, remember that the website and newsletter are intended for your news, so if you have a tale to tell then submit it to news@bedsroad.org
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