Hemel Hempstead Cycling Club

Hi folks,

Well we have come to the end of the evening events with tonight's last 10. The evening looked like it would be quite tough with a cross tailwind out and subsequent tough return, but in reality the wind seemed to drop to almost nothing for most, resulting in many PB's or seasons best for the course. Although dry at first it did start to drizzle a little for the later starters. A pretty large number turned out too - although the majority were not club members!

Fastest with what I think is his 2nd fastest ever time for the course was Luke Clarke (Team Milton Keynes). He had a comfortable gap of almost 50 seconds back to Jonathan Shubert (Verulam CC) and well over a minute on Matt Meadows. 4th place came Domonic Chapman (Tuff Fitty Tri) with a tie for 5th place between Stev Clarke (Team Milton Keynes and Mark Allen (Orange Monkey).

On handicap with several riders getting a PB then it was a case of the one getting the biggest gain on old. Sarah Williamson had the best opportunity to gain and took it with both feet! An improvement of well over 2 minutes would always be tough to beat. A bit closer was 2nd placed Richard Barrow who improved almost 40 seconds. Interestingly Steve Roffe came 3rd on handicap but improved by over 40 seconds - the handicapper had expected and anticipated some improvement hence Steve did not beat Richard on handicap. in 4th place, just 1 seconds down on Steve was Paul Thomson (me!) - we both have exactly the same handicap allowance, so Steve beat me on scratch by 1 second also. In 5th place was Ian Baynes, also improving still. topping out the top 6 was Richard Greaves, just outside the handicappers target time of 21 minutes (after allowance has been taken into account).

Those who have been following the points scores on scratch and handicap will have seen that the battle for the honours on handicap and mens scratch were still all to play for coming into the last event.
Before today Steve Roffe held a good lead but was vulnerable to Ian Baynes who had been scoring heavily in the last few months. Ian had just 9 out of a possible 10 scoring rides, but Steve had already done more than 10, so to gain points he had to score higher than his current lowest counting score. In the end Steve did a PB by a greater margin that Ian tonight so deservedly got a higher handicap position, and in doing so managed to increase his score by and additional 2 points. Ian added his full points for the night, but he fell just short of overtaking Steve with 4 points separating them. In 3rd place on handicap points came Stuart Turner who was an early leader in this competition, but his form and times plateaued, hence his handicap score did too - you need to keep improving to do well at this game!
On mens Scratch points, Stuart Turner held a 13 point lead over John Lacey going into the last ride - but Stuart had already done 11 events and John had done 8, so with only the top 10 scores to count John had a great chance of overturning the deficit he had. Stuart managed to improve his score by an additional point by outscoring a lower previous ride, but John did enough by being 2nd fastest club rider and gained the 19 points from that to win overall by 5 points. The battle for the last podium place was also very close: Andy Murray had a 2 point advantage over Ian Baynes, with both having done less than 10 rides then both could look to score as much as they could on this event. In the end, Ian came in with the 3rd best club time, and with it the 18 points, and Andy Murray failed to capitalise on the small points advantage he had to come in 6th club rider and only gained 14 points - thus Ian turned a 2 point deficit into a 2 point lead and therefore claimed the 3rd place overall. So all the top placings changed in the last event.
The other 2 competitions remained unchanged, with Helen Reynolds winning the womens scratch points and JD taking the best Vet on Standard.

As is traditional over the years, a little boring paragraph of statistics: We had a total of 364 rides done during the season (228 by Hemel club members), by 97 different riders (43 from the Hemel club). The fastest ride (ignoring the rides done on the roadworks shortened events) was a great 20:48 by Ross Clarke (Team Milton Keynes) way back in the 2nd event of the series at the end of April! Gavin Atkins did the best by a Hemel club rider with a 21:16. Steve Roffe got his money's worth by being the rider with the most rides done this year: 15 out of a possible 17 (18 events - 17 10's plus the hilly, with one 10 cancelled by roadworks).

Thanks go to Bob Clark who timekept the entire 17 events. He was often assisted by Dave Rogers (as he was again today - and Dave also did the pushing off too!). The marshals at Dagnall were Helen Reynolds and Sam Williamson (who aborted taking pictures... he forgot to empty the memory card!), and at the turn by Giles Haley. Giles also managed to take turn split times, which are shown in the table below.

OK, the next Hemel promotion is... well actually in theory it is this coming Saturday at Hillingdon, where we are the assisting club in promoting the 1st of the Saturday series, which are a continuation of the regular Tuesday series held at the circuit. We still need to find people to help out there - please see if you can find a few hours starting at noon to assist.
After that Stewart Boucher runs the Norlond Combine 25 on Sunday 19 September, and although a couple of other clubs will help us in doing this event, a couple of extra people will not go amiss!
Then in October we have a couple of events: firstly the Hillclimb up Ivinghoe Beacon on Sunday 10 October - 10 am start. The clubrun will take people out to the event to take part in it (or for the wimps to watch and cheer). The following weekend will be the clubs 3rd ever Cyclo-Cross promotion on Sunday 17 October. Again help will be needed - but also riders!. The 'cross is the 3rd event of the 9 round Central Region Cyclo-Cross League. Riders who take part in these races will get points scored towards the overall league, with the overall winners announced and presented with their awards after the final event. Races all take place within easy reach and happen every weekend for 8 weekends from 3 October until the end of November then the last event is the 12 December. There is a dedicated website (www.centralcxl.org.uk) but it has yet to be updated with the 2010 details. Hopefully soon!

Paul