Pics by Rob Crayton & Steve Sayers
The Powerbar Midlands Champs and round two of the series was a cracking day out at Hanchurch Woods, near Stoke-On-Trent, on Sunday. Local lad Martyn Brookes (who races for Yeti Cycles UK) put the course together, and did a fantastic job. The course had a bit of everything – a couple of big gravelly climbs, twisty singletrack descents, a huge high-speed bombhole, and lots of tricky obstacles like rock piles, logs, step-ups and drops. The atmosphere on the start line for Race 1 was a buzz of happy excitement, and it stayed that way all day.The Midlands Championship titles were up for grabs, and Dave Collins (SiS) had a storming ride in the afternoon race to take the Elite men’s title. Unfortunately the only eligible rider in the Elite women’s race, Annie Last (Halfords), did not finish, so we didn’t award an Elite female champion. However Rachel Fenton had a great ride to win the Expert Champion’s title, and as such took top honours as the leading female Midlands racer.
Our race was set for five laps, and at about 25 minutes per lap it was a long race by modern standards, more in line with classic XC distance. I was line up against my young team mate Annabel Simpson, as well as Annie Last. These young riders are very quick, and brilliant on the technical stuff, and I knew I would have my work cut out taking the race to them on this course.
Annie took to the front of the group on the first climb, and I was happy to let her set the pace and see how things would unfold. Sure enough, she got away from me in the middle section of the course through the singletrack descents, but I caught her back up towards the end of the lap. Lap 2 was the same again, and we set out on Lap 3 still together. I managed to hold her wheel a bit better through the singletrack this time, but unfortunately she broke her chain near the end of the lap. I rode easy for a few minutes through to the feedzone, to give her a chance to fix her chain, then set off at race pace again.
Annie managed to fix her chain pretty quickly, and was only about three minutes behind, but decided to call it a day after four laps, as it was her first race back after being ill, and she felt she’d had enough. Meanwhile, our Annabel damaged a pedal on her third lap, but managed to limp around mostly one-legged to finish the full five laps and take second place.
The afternoon race saw Dave Collins take the win, but he didn’t have things all his own way. He had Robert Friel (KTM-Pod) for company for the first two of six laps, but Robert lost about three minutes in the third lap, and despite a strong performance in the second half of the race, was unable to take back the time and missed the podium. Oli Cox (Pedal Power) put in a strong showing to take second with Andrew Cockburn (Cambridge CC) in third.
The Master mens’ race, also in the afternoon, was another close-fought race with just five minutes separating the top 10 places. Matt Barrett (KTM-Pod) led from the start but was chased hard all the way by Phil Morris (XCracer 29ers), and finished with a lead of just 26 seconds. Glenn Stanford (Extreme Sports Therapy) took third, another 12 seconds back. The chasing bunch included Altura Patterson Training Coach Andrew Patterson, who had a great battle with Darren Alexander (Mini Adventure) and Chris Rathbone (Websters Specialized), but was outsprinted by Darren on the line and finished seventh, with Matthew Dennis (Yeti Cycles UK) ahead in fourth place.
The Junior female title went to Danielle Rider (Sherwood Pines), in the race by herself but nonetheless putting in some quick laps to earn her medal. Ben Roff (Orange Monkey) took the Junior men’s win ahead of Lewis Burke (Macclesfield Wheelers) and Aron Marshall (Sherwood Pines).
Verity Appleyard beat Gill Hilton by 57 seconds to take the Master women’s win. Patterson Training client Michael Powell (Sherwood Pines) had a fairly comfortable win over Mark James (Bad Ass Bikes) in the Vet men’s race, with John Smith (Numplumz) in third. The Vet women’s race saw an impressive ride by World Masters Champ Belinda Tarling (Cheltenham & County), finishing 14 minutes ahead of nearest rival Karen Summers (Paramount) and third placed Lorna Rider (Sherwood Pines).
In the morning Youth race, Matt Sumpton (Matlock CC) won by over two minuntes from Alex Baker (Orange Monkey) and James Hyde (Numplumz). Bethany Crumpton made the most of her front-row starting position to win the Youth girls’ race by eight minutes ahead of Hollie Bettles (XCracer.com/Trek).
For a full list of results and lap times in all the categories please go to http://www.timelaps.co.uk/.
For a full gallery of pics by Rob Crayton please go to http://www.robcrayton.co.uk/.
For news on the Midlands Championship titles and series standings please go to http://www.xcracer.com/.
Big thanks to organisers Nadine Spearing (another Altura Patterson Training team rider) and James Hampshire for putting on an awesome event. You can see the Altura Patterson Training team in action at the Original Source Mountain Mayhem 24 hour race next weekend.
Elite Women on the start line
Jenn O'Connor
Annabel Simpson
No comments:
Post a Comment