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REPORTS Women's Series 7, Toaster •
Womens's Series 4, Bedford •
Antelope TTT • Women's National Team Road Race Series Race 7 August 14 2005 - by Charlotte Lemanski On Sunday 14th August a depleted OUCCW team set out to compete in the Towcester (yes, it really is pronounced 'toaster') round of the National Women's Team Series. In this prestigious and select line-up were: Helen Haworth (our esteemed women's captain), Sam van Gerbig, Charlotte Lemanski, and Moira Goodway (from Banbury Star, but riding for OUCCW). The race involved 10.6 laps of a hilly circuit, with the wind blowing a strong head-wing on one leg. After the first half-lap of neutralisation, the flag was pulled in and the bunch raced up the first major climb, and in doing so dropped several riders, leaving only Sam and Helen in the bunch. First OUCCW rider off the back, Charlotte chased up to Moira (and two other riders), who then rode together for half a lap until Moira pulled away on a climb, leaving Charlotte to ride the remaining 9 laps with a Surrey league rider. Helen was dropped by the main bunch on the second lap and was unfortunately feeling very sick and dizzy, and so retired after riding five laps. Sam, however, was riding strongly in the main bunch, but unfortunately a break (Jenny Derham, Twickenham CC and a Luciano rider) had formed and thus the bunch was left to chase, never managing to reach the pair - who themselves also split when Derham pulled away. The bunch sprint was won by Diane Moss (Luciano) with Sam fighting in there and finishing at the same time. Moira was the next OUCCW finisher, having 'bonked' after 30 miles and ridden the last 20 alone, almost being caught by Charlotte (the next OUCCW) finisher, who dropped her Surrey league partner in the final miles. Although disappointing results, we all worked hard and were very glad that the rain held off until 2 minutes after the finish! Thanks also to Stuart for standing and running around in a bright yellow lycra skinsuit (whilst holding bottles/gels etc.), which gave us all something to smile at ;-) Women's National Team Road Race Series Race 4 Rachel Hughes, Marcie Reinhart, Lesley Parry-Jones, Charlotte Lemanski and Katie King took part in 5 gruelling stages at the Bedford 3-day over the bank holiday weekend. Cambridge’s top rider, Emma Pooley, swapped her light blue jersey and also joined the dark side as a guest rider, enabling OUCC to field a full team of 6 riders for the Team Series event. From an original field of nearly 90 riders, OUCC were one of only two teams to have 6 riders complete the event – and took away an impressive 6th place overall in the team standings... beating Nicole Cooke’s pro team, GS Safi, to 7th place in the process! Emma had a superb weekend to take 5th place overall amongst a field containing world class athletes - it was a pleasure to have her on the team & we’ll be watching her progress with much interest in the future! A special mention should go to the courage shown by both Rachel and Charlotte in Stage 4 to get back on their bikes and race after both being involved in crashes. According to Danny’s calculations, Rachel would have been placed 20th overall on GC had she not lost time in that stage. Unfortunately, Sam van Gerbig (who’d been having a storming weekend riding for BCF Central) was also unlucky to be caught up in crashes in both Stages 4 & 5 and had to retire early on the final day. Combined individual results (Rachel 37th, Marcie 45th, Lesley 58th, Charlotte 61st, Katie 62nd) took OUCC to 7th out of 23 ranked teams in the overall standings for the National Women’s Team Series. The team would particularly like the thank Danny & Mike for their support throughout the weekend – and congratulate Danny on managing to squeeze in an impressive 12th place at the Premier Calendar RR on Sunday! Full results for the weekend. Women's
National Team Road Race Series Race 1 Sunday 10th April saw five members of OUCC compete in the first race of the Women's Team Series in Nottingham. The team of Marcia Reinhart, Rachel Hughes, Katie King, Jess Leitch, Charlotte Lemanski and helpful team mechanic Mike made it to the race HQ at Sutton Bonnington campus with plenty of time to spare helped by the very early departure time of 6 am from Oxford! Conditions were sunny with a slight wind and thankfully there was only one hill on the 5 mile circuit. However, since it was a 10 lap race, this hill seemed to increase dramatically in gradient as the race wore on. Eventually, Helen Gutteridge of Team Luciano-Trek managed to win the race from a bunch sprint. Unfortunately due to our relative inexperience we did not manage to feature in the main bunch with the results being as follows: The team managed to gain a credible score of 94 points which hopefully we will add to as the season progresses and as our experience and confidence grows. Finally, it was a reasonable first race on which we can improve and our thanks must go to must go team mechanic Mike and coach Danny. Antelope RT 50km Team Time Trial April 2nd 2005 - by Charlotte Lemanski On Saturday 2 April the OUCC ladies team of Helen Haworth, Katie King and Charlotte Lemanski tackled the Antelope RT 50km Team Time Trial event in Buckinghamshire. The starting official seemed somewhat surprised to learn that the three ladies had never ridden as a team before - in fact, that Helen and Katie had only met Charlotte 5 minutes earlier, but undeterred (even by Charlottes' chain falling off as the starter counted down 5 ... 4 ... 3 ) the women set off ... straight into a strong headwind. The route involved two laps of a relatively flat circuit on country lanes, and throughout the course the women rode tightly together as a team, taking turns to ride on the front for a minute before peeling off to allow another rider to take the front. This worked smoothly apart from the slight rise in speed when Helen went on the front (as well as her unusual line of cornering!), as well as Charlotte's error in failing to notice a sharp corner as she focused exclusively on the wheel in front. By the final straight on the final lap, energies were starting to wane and as the final 3 miles of the course involved a direct headwind, Helen was lumbered exclusively with the task of sitting on the front as neither Charlotte or Katie had the strength to come through into such a strong headwind, and the team finished together in 1:28:50. Once back at the HQ and changed, the women were delighted to learn that they had won the ladies' event - beating the High Wycombe ladies by almost 9 minutes (though they finished with only two riders after one got dropped) as well as beating two male teams! This was a really fun event and one in which working as a team (as well as sitting on Helen's wheel!) was really the crucial element. Photos
OUCC ladies' team member March 19th-20th 2005 - by Marcie Reinhart The BUSA mountain bike championships recently took place in Innerleithen, Scotland. After arriving late Friday night, team Oxford (all 3 of us) awoke bright and early Saturday morning to cram down a massive breakfast and pre-ride the course while the downhill races took place. And what a course it was...beginning with some switchback climbing along the side of the downhill course, followed by more climbing on some slightly more gradual fire roads, leading into...even more climbing. The last climbing section was particularly nasty, as it was steeper, muddy, and rather lengthy. Upon finally reaching the end of this section, riders were greeted by another gradual uphill on fire-road before finally cresting the hill and entering the "fun" part of the course. And fun it was...intense, rocky and unforgiving singletrack that was the source of much blood loss over the weekend. After finishing this section, riders had only a few moments to breathe a sigh of relief before beginning the long and final descent to the lap area, which consisted of many downhill features such as launches, rollers and table-tops. It was one of most technically difficult courses I have ever seen, let alone raced! After spending a few laps learning the course and the rest of the day cheering on the downhillers, we retired to our B&B for some spaghetti and a good night of rest. Sunday morning brought gray skies and fog - hardly the beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures we had experienced the day before. Regardless, we all cheered on as Christian started the Sport Men's race in the morning...and promptly broke his chain less than a minute into the race. After some quick trail-side mechanical work, he was back on his bike, only 5 or 10 minutes down. As the morning Sport races were winding down, the rest of us warmed up and prepared to race. The Championship Men's group, which included Lloyd along with some of our Cambridge rivals, started first...their category was so large the had to be divided into 4 seeding groups. After they took off, and a few minutes' delay ensued to allow the obligatory carnage to clear, our Championship Women's category was off. Very quickly, a group of five women (myself included, fortunately) broke away from the pack during the initial climb, and battled it out over the fire-road climbing section with the lead constantly changing. Toward the end of this section, last-year's BUSA silver medallist and eventual 2005 winner Nicky Duggan of Bath began to pull away and develop a lead she wouldn't relinquish for the rest of the race. I entered the final muddy climbing section in second place with the leader still in sight, while another member of our group of five - fellow Canadian Katy Curtis of Leeds - suffered a flat tire she had to stop and fix. The remaining two racers were forced to walk the climb in the muddy conditions and a battle for third place ensued. From this point on, the top two spots remained fixed as they were and the gaps between both us two and the rest of the field only grew larger for the rest of the race. For my part, I managed to endo on the rocks in my first lap, and although I was cut up and a bit shaken there was enough adrenaline still flowing that I was able to get back on and keep riding. Soon enough I ran into Lloyd, who was walking his bike near the top of the course cursing his dodgy freehub that has been the source of much recent frustration. Following my initial crash, I tried to play it safe to avoid any further carnage, and judging from the splits I was receiving I didn't feel it would affect my position much either way. I finished the rest of the first lap and the entire second one without any further incidents, and only required a small trip to the first aid trailer at the finish to clean out my half-congealed knee scrape. At the end of the day, Christian finished 62nd (out of 91 finishers) in the Sport race, Lloyd had to DNF due to his mechanical problems, and I hung in there for second place in the Champs race - not quite good enough for a free bottle of champagne, but maybe next year. Overall, it was a beautiful location, a very challenging course, and the organisers did a great job making this year's BUSA mountain bike championships a memorable event. 20 Feb 2005 A chilly Sunday in February brought the annual contest of MTB prowess between Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Held in conjunction with the Gorrick Spring Series, the organisers promised a fast and furious course for this year's varsity race with some twisty single track to keep competitors on their toes. Oxford's expert rider and team leader, Marcie Reinhart, dominated the women's race from the start, establishing an impressive lead ahead of the field. Second place was fiercely contested throughout the first lap, with Katie King challenging Cambridge's Emma Pooley and Sarah Todd in the early stages. Pooley's fitness took her charging into the silver medal position as the second lap began but posed no threat to Reinhart's eventual 10-minute winning margin. King took bronze and team-mate, Lindsay MacDonald, secured an overall dark blue victory for the strong Oxford women's team. Reinhart's success was repeated in the men's event with Oxford's captain, Lloyd Pallet, taking glory in the individual rankings. Unfortunately for his team-mates, the Cambridge men secured the team title in this half of the varsity contest. An early-season victory for the women over Cambridge bodes well for the squad as they prepare to take on their light blue opponents in the varsity road event at the BUSA 25 mile time trial in May. There are a couple of photos at www.swarbrick.com.
Once we were set up with our hire bikes, the training afternoon began. To start with, we did laps of the athletics track inside the cycle track, just to get used to the bikes. The principle difference between a track bike and a road bike is that the former has no brakes, no gears and worst of all: no free wheel mechanism!!! This makes it very difficult to clip cleats in and out of the pedals, as most cyclists are in the habit of free wheeling to do this! The simplest solution seemed to be to start and stop with the support of the fence round the cycle track. Fortunately, the track at Reading is not very steep, so cycling to the edge of the track is not a problem!
After a gentle beginning, the organizers took the training up a level, with a series of different kinds of track races. We competed first in an individual 500m time trial, followed by a 500m sprint (with four riders in each heat). Then the number of riders on the track increased again, as we took part in a competition called "Devil take the hindmost" in which the last three riders past the line on each lap are eliminated. This was a test of tactics, and experience in knowing where to put your bike was invaluable. Following this we were introduced to Keiren racing, in which the riders follow a "derny" (or moped) around the track until a certain point in the race, and then are allowed to sprint to the line. Finally, just as our legs were beginning to fail, we finished with some longer and more gruelling scratch and points races which involved more laps of the track than we'd care to remember!
So the day was a great crash course in track cycling, and a really good chance to compete against others of a similar ability, although many of them seemed to have acquired lighter track bikes from somewhere! Its good for improving your road cycling technique as you have to keep pedalling all the time at quite a high cadence, and as there are no gears or brakes on the handle bars it encourages you to use the drops at all times! For further doses of track cycling, Kat is planning to go to the Reading Velodrome every Thursday evening in term time. Just bring your pedals, shoes, helmet and a sense of adventure!!! Lesley Parry-Jones Central Division Team Training Day
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