East Kent league round 5 – Betteshanger Park - race report
Jan 22, 2018 20:31:24 GMT
Nigel Wood, Steve Sorba, and 12 more like this
Post by James Malone on Jan 22, 2018 20:31:24 GMT
One for the hard Men & Women of Dulwich this one. Waking up to a weather forecast of a ‘high’ of 2 degrees, wind, sleet and heavy rain, most people would be forgiven for wimping out, but no we are made of stronger stuff than that (I’d also agreed to drive so as much as I wanted to I couldn’t get out of it). Instead we donned our lycra to go race the final round of the East Kent league in some place called Deal which is in France.
The noble French peasants had put on a cracking course for us ‘Rosbifs’. Built within an old coal mine the course took in some fast straights, a small bit of single track, some small hillocks and a load of sloppy wet cold mud. Think cold lumpy chocolate Angel Delight and you’d be nearly at the consistency of the mud. A special treat was the standing water we had to ride through. Freezing dirty water sloshing around in my shoes for an hour, yes please, was said by no one!
First up was Charlie and Joe in the V50s race. Yet again Charlie’s nemesis ‘the tree’ meant that he had a less than perfect race. Becoming intimate with a few of our leafy friends he nevertheless finished strong in 9th. Joe, despite a little lie-down mid-corner on one lap followed Charlie home finishing 13th.
Next up was the combined juniors and Women’s race. Eddie Davies was in the Juniors and as befitting the official 15th best junior in the country he smashed it round, winning the race. Ed celebrated by succumbing to pneumonia post-race and headed off to his nearby holiday home (who has one of those!) for convalescence. RIP Ed.
Over in the Women’s side of the race, Miss marginal gains, Olivia Campbell was racing. Following her experiments with lopsided clothing at the Badlands race, this week’s marginal gain was to turn up with no pad in her brake pads. This weight weenie approach to cross was super successful leading to a 5th place finish (3rd place senior). It was probably all the downhill overtaking she was doing as she couldn’t stop! Yet more GT85 was claimed as swag for this result, don’t drink it all at once Olivia.
Finally it was the turn of the seniors race. With 7 riders from Dulwich entered a third of the field looked to be Belgium blue. Thankfully and somewhat miraculously the rain/sleet stopped just before the start. This allowed us all to see John Cox rolling up to the line bursting with pride or was that pies as a severe skin-suit malfunction led to him showing a bit too much flesh for his, and our liking. Industrial strength safety pins applied he was ready to race.
A frenetic start saw Dave Rees lead into the first corner and ever the team player he then, at the first hill, used his patented “falling off” technique to back the field up and into the pursuing Dulwich riders. Taking advantage of this, myself, Alex Windett and Matt Laws slipped into a three way battle for 6th. This battle went on for the rest of the race and was won by Alex with two laps to go when he powered away. I finished with no brakes in 7th and Matt finished a cold 8th. The flashing Jon Cox and Aiden ‘Adrian’ Scully also had strong races and finished 11th & 18th respectively.
Whilst that was all playing out Chris Platt a man for whom Bear Grylls looks up to for his toughness, decided that the race and conditions were not hard enough. Scoffing at the concept of gears he jumped on Dave’s single speed half way through the race to grind the rest of the way round to finish 23rd. If anyone knows a good knee surgeon Chris would now appreciate their number!
But the final word should go to Mr Rees. Dave finished 2nd in the race and with it claimed the East Kent league title*. This coveted title, allowing him to herd his sheep unopposed throughout East Kent and also to drive his car on any pavement within the bounds of Deal was richly deserved.
Next up should be round 13 of the London League on the 28th but it is in doubt due to double booking of a wet field. Failing that it’s the team champs on the 4th Feb.
*Champion Dave Rees is now available for promotional activities including but not limited to shop openings, weddings, funerals, baptisms, school fetes, animal husbandry etc etc
The noble French peasants had put on a cracking course for us ‘Rosbifs’. Built within an old coal mine the course took in some fast straights, a small bit of single track, some small hillocks and a load of sloppy wet cold mud. Think cold lumpy chocolate Angel Delight and you’d be nearly at the consistency of the mud. A special treat was the standing water we had to ride through. Freezing dirty water sloshing around in my shoes for an hour, yes please, was said by no one!
First up was Charlie and Joe in the V50s race. Yet again Charlie’s nemesis ‘the tree’ meant that he had a less than perfect race. Becoming intimate with a few of our leafy friends he nevertheless finished strong in 9th. Joe, despite a little lie-down mid-corner on one lap followed Charlie home finishing 13th.
Next up was the combined juniors and Women’s race. Eddie Davies was in the Juniors and as befitting the official 15th best junior in the country he smashed it round, winning the race. Ed celebrated by succumbing to pneumonia post-race and headed off to his nearby holiday home (who has one of those!) for convalescence. RIP Ed.
Over in the Women’s side of the race, Miss marginal gains, Olivia Campbell was racing. Following her experiments with lopsided clothing at the Badlands race, this week’s marginal gain was to turn up with no pad in her brake pads. This weight weenie approach to cross was super successful leading to a 5th place finish (3rd place senior). It was probably all the downhill overtaking she was doing as she couldn’t stop! Yet more GT85 was claimed as swag for this result, don’t drink it all at once Olivia.
Finally it was the turn of the seniors race. With 7 riders from Dulwich entered a third of the field looked to be Belgium blue. Thankfully and somewhat miraculously the rain/sleet stopped just before the start. This allowed us all to see John Cox rolling up to the line bursting with pride or was that pies as a severe skin-suit malfunction led to him showing a bit too much flesh for his, and our liking. Industrial strength safety pins applied he was ready to race.
A frenetic start saw Dave Rees lead into the first corner and ever the team player he then, at the first hill, used his patented “falling off” technique to back the field up and into the pursuing Dulwich riders. Taking advantage of this, myself, Alex Windett and Matt Laws slipped into a three way battle for 6th. This battle went on for the rest of the race and was won by Alex with two laps to go when he powered away. I finished with no brakes in 7th and Matt finished a cold 8th. The flashing Jon Cox and Aiden ‘Adrian’ Scully also had strong races and finished 11th & 18th respectively.
Whilst that was all playing out Chris Platt a man for whom Bear Grylls looks up to for his toughness, decided that the race and conditions were not hard enough. Scoffing at the concept of gears he jumped on Dave’s single speed half way through the race to grind the rest of the way round to finish 23rd. If anyone knows a good knee surgeon Chris would now appreciate their number!
But the final word should go to Mr Rees. Dave finished 2nd in the race and with it claimed the East Kent league title*. This coveted title, allowing him to herd his sheep unopposed throughout East Kent and also to drive his car on any pavement within the bounds of Deal was richly deserved.
Next up should be round 13 of the London League on the 28th but it is in doubt due to double booking of a wet field. Failing that it’s the team champs on the 4th Feb.
*Champion Dave Rees is now available for promotional activities including but not limited to shop openings, weddings, funerals, baptisms, school fetes, animal husbandry etc etc
