Prelude to racing 8th July
Entries are open for this week's racing, 8th July
This week's racing sees the return of a format which has not been raced for some year's by the Seniors, though the Youth's practiced it a few weeks back. More of that and other League related new later in the newsletter.
The headline story for this Wednesday is its Scratch Championship Night. Youths and Seniors can race the Scratch Champs with Seniors having the option of a non-champs scratch. In recognition of the Champs and the increasing fitness of riders at the peak of the season the races are elongated. Thus Youth Minor have a 5 lap scratch, Youth Major 7 laps and Seniors 27 laps (10 miles). For Seniors who feel not up to a 10 mile race there is a non-champs 12 lap race. However, for Seniors, your choice of race may have a major impact on your league position. With double points for the Scratch Champs combined with our modified points system, the winner of the Senior Scratch Champs will win 100 points. Allowing for the potential for absentees then four different riders could end the evening as League Leaders. This follows immediately after last week when we saw Nathan Cozens (Brighton Mitre) usurp Jack Patten (PPYCC) at the top of the League. Add in Freddie Hick (Brighton Mitre) and Harley Clarke (PPYCC) then any of these riders can claim the top spot this week. Notably the top 8 Senior League places are held by members of PPYCC and Brighton Mitre. This League position scenario also plays out in the Youth Minor, for Des Harris and Thor Spicer, though only 20 points are at stake here.
Since we met last Wednesday local racing has seen the second of two Hove Park Crits, promoted by Brighton Mitre, with several League members taking part from Youth through to Seniors. That completes the
Hove Crit series and we will see the return of the SCRL Friday Circuit Races at Preston Park from the 17th July. A new race has appeared locally too, the Pippingford Gravel Race took place on the Pippingford Estate near East Grinstead on Sunday 5th July. This was the first sanctioned gravel race in Sussex, which creates a symmetry for this newsletter author who was at the first ever UK sanctioned mountain bike race which took place in 1984 at Golding Barn, just outside Bramber. Thus it has taken over 40 years for gravel bikes to appear, bikes which to many are reminiscent of the rigid mtbs of the 80s, albeit with the addition of drop handlebars. One significance of this race is that those present, including myself, saw last week's League leader, and this week's second place, Jack Patten took a convincing win in the adult 50km race. Many described the course as brutal, but Jack, the youngest in the field, came through in the lead on lap 1and by the finish on lap 6 was 5 minutes clear of his nearest opponent. It was also great to see longstanding League member Sam Cheesman podium in the 100km event. On a hot day this race had a high attrition rate and so these were determined performances worthy of recognition.
I know other League members were out racing this past week but have no other details. Feel free to share with me any race results, event participations or other cycling news of League members you would like to share with others. Coming up, in a date clash, this Wednesday is the popular Guildford Crits, if you chose that option then send in your report.
Returning to this week, we have the introduction of 200m sprints, with consecutive heats and finals across all race categories. As an effectively new event try to make sure you know what is going on. To help there will be some further technical advice in a second newsletter tomorrow. Please note that the seeding for the sprints will be determined by your result in the three lap dash, the preceding race. Thus, Scratch Champs, 3 lap Dash, 200m heats, 200m Finals and an Unknown distance with primes is the full night programme.
For those that like the footie, if England win their next match their semi-final is 20:00 on Wednesday 15th July, a night for which we currently have no Commissaire!