The Annual Hillclimb and a Chance for the Lightweights to Shine

Thank you very much  to Richard Latimer for this great report.

Sunday 24th September was the interclub hillclimb championships between Welland Valley CC, Rockingham Forest Wheelers and Kettering CC with the coveted men’s and women’s club trophies up for grabs (well actually not because the men’s is missing and the women’s got broken on the day, but bragging rights nonetheless). This year the event was organised by Kettering CC with the HQ at Rockingham’s home, and the climb was “the hill” from HQ up to the A427.

The drizzle and block headwind didn’t put people off, with a bumper field of 56 riders very impressive for a hillclimb event.

Over the last year I’ve personally made hillclimbs a target in my cycling and am mid-way through an attempt at a “proper” hillclimb season so I was keen to give a good account of myself.

Gary Roberts was the first under 2 minutes and held the men’s lead on the live scoreboard in the HQ for a long time while Milly Pinnock was in top spot in the women’s; looking good for WVCC but the word from the course was that there were some fast times coming.

For me, sub 2 seemed a good target and my ride went well, getting lucky with a seamless clip-in at the start I decided to go hard into the climb to make a difference as I was concerned about the long flat section in the second half of the course with the maximum 38-11 gearing on my hillclimb machine. The last 45 seconds was indeed a battle to keep the cadence high but when I stopped my computer on 1:51 I knew I had a good chance of taking the lead even taking into account the usual second or two to allow for the computer starting.

I then got to watch the later riders attack the hill to great effect, including a blistering 2:06 from Harriet Evans, taking the win in the women’s for WVCC despite initially only turning up to watch!

A slightly anxious wait in the hHQ (while enjoying the catering of Rockingham) for the final times to come in confirmed that I had managed to finish at the top of the leader board and most importantly, WVCC won both the men’s and the women’s categories convincingly with strong rides all round. The scorers (top 30 positions mens and women’s) were Richard Latimer, Richard Kendrick, Austin Smith, Gary, Jamie Kershaw, William Cull, Andy Poulton Richard Krause, John Abbott  and Mike Sirett in the men’s and Harriet, Milly, Kamilla Leska, Anna Roberts, Sophia Gowers, Joanna Camp and Judith Rout in the women’s, strongly backed up by more WVCC right through the standings. Special mention for the women who secured a 1, 2, 3 and for Richard K, Austin and Gary who were separated by less than a second! And finally to Jamie who was actually fastest up the hill itself (at least according to the segment times visible to me on Strava).

Side note – if anyone knows of the whereabouts of the men’s team trophy, please let Judith know!!

photo by Matt Plews

 

Here are the final, confirmed scores. In the women’s event  Welland Valley won with 182 points, with Rockingham Forest on 93.
In the Open event Welland Valley won with 176 points, Kettering were 2nd on 153 points and Rockingham Forest 3rd with 136 points.

You can see the  full results  here: https://resultsheet.app/rsd/1695047754017×272127501102481400

and you can check out the current standings in the club timetrial championship here: Welland Valley 2023 Results (wellandvalleycc.github.io)