February’s Team Championships mark the end of the cross season. Half relief that the warm(er) weather is on the way, and half sadness that the wacky world of cyclo cross is done for another year.

First, news on the sesaon’s league standings overall:

After 14 rounds of racing since September, held all over the South East of England, Thomas Finch came 2nd, and Fred Wright 3rd in the Youth boys – both great results. Abi Van Twisk went one better by winning the Youth girls category (and sorry for getting that wrong the first time!). Jules Birks came 3rd overall in the Senior men, after a very strong year of racing, and not helped by a few mechanicals throughout the year ruining a few races for him.

So between the Youth and Senior catagories we had a first, second and two thirds. Excellent stuff.

In the Seniors, Philip Glowinski also come 9th overall, and Keiran Laurie was 8th Junior. In total, the VCL had 4 U12s, 5 Youths, and 15 seniors racing throughout the year. Some seriously good results, well done all!

Onto the Team Champs itself VCL entered 1 youth team, and 3 senior teams. The course at Great Walstead School is always a good great course to finish the season on. This year, the snow was hanging around making for a crazy start straight and slippery corners. The coruse was a lot more technical than previous years, with usually just a  few seconds of straight before the next tight corner.

The youths had a good race, Thomas had a typical strong race to finish in 5th. Fred and Abi finished one behind each other, with Fred taking 13th boy, and Abi a fantastic ride to take 14th (1st girl). Rachel came 4th girl helping the team a very respectable 5th place overall.

On to the senior race, VCL entered the second most riders spread over 3 teams, and unlike last year’s bevvy of mechanical issues, all 11 finishes meaning we had the most finishers of any team! Despite team manager Philip taking the previous race off to study everyone’s form to help decide which team they went in (at least that the excuse he used), as usual on the unpredictable course C teamer beat A teamers etc. Its since been pointed out the first 3 VCL finishers scored enough points to get second place overall, only problem that they were representing a mixture of the A team and C team! Largely though everyone finished roughly where expected.

As usual Jules (5th place) and Philip (7th place) were dominant, despite Jules rolling a tub and me forgetting to bring his spare wheels (sorry again!) Luckily Shaun’s mountainbike served well as a spare. James had one of his best races of the year to finish 22nd, and fell off much less than usual, in spite of the technical, slippery course. Iain (33rd), Kieran (38th) came in pretty close to each other, while Andy (42nd), Jason (45th), Chris (46th) and Shaun (56th) were all even closer having swapped positions a few time during the race. Phil (68th) and David (81st) rounded things off nicely over a lap up on some of the field.

Frustratingly, even after a great ride from everyone, the A team could only able to equal its 4th place from last year. The B team came 9th (though I can see the inaccurate results owe us enough points to jump to 8th) and the C team came 14th. This means all 3 of our senior teams finished in the top half of the rankings. Great stuff.

The impressive-looking VCL warm-up area

U14 Boys Podium

The U14 girls couldn’t quite match their counterparts in the boys category, but Charlotte, Rachel and Georgie, all three new to the category, put in consistent performances finishing 7th, 8th and 10th repectively. The VCL girls were amongst the most aggresive riders in a category where conservative racing seemed to be the order of the day. All three put in big turns both attacking and chasing down breaks.

For Max Cheatle in the U12 boys it was his first experience of racing at Newport. His 14th overall was creditable in a field where many of the riders are frequent vistors to the track. The toughest category, as ever, was the U16 boys in which VCL had three representatives: George Jary, Hisham Al-Ramah and Oliver Cliff. Like the U14 girls, all three have moved up this year and their 14th, 17th and 22nd places respectively are decent in a category where the racing is very fast, tactical and technical. George did well in the points and scratch races and looked better than his 10th and 13th places would suggest, but it was in the elimination race where his tactic of sprinting from the back misfired and his 20th cost him four places in his overall position. Otherwise, for a first-year U16, Georges’ was an impressive ride. The rider who did get his elimination tactics right was Hisham, who finished 6th in that race and might have done even better, but looked almost embarassed to still be in with the company he was with and hesitated just enough to get called out with six riders left.

Well done to all who rode. Once again VCL colours were displayed to good effect.

Many of VCL’s older youth riders were keen to ride in the senior madison, so we only had one rider in the youth races. Thomas Gloag riding in one of his first races had a good ride, and now wants a cross bike!

We had a great turn out for the senior race – 21 riders. Kerian, riding with Ashley Dennis of Brighton’s VC Jubilee got our best result with an impressive 3rd overall. Euan and I did surprisingly well in 6th, just a few places ahead of Iain and Andy in 9th.

This being a Go Race though, the focus should be on those riders trying out Cyclo Cross for the first time or just for fun. Tony and Oliver gave cyclo cross a go for the first time, and Charlotte and Rachel rode as seniors for the first time – especially to show off their madison slings!

Well done to Tim who did a great job of organising, and to all the volunteers who helped set up the course and marshal and officiate on the day. Also thanks to Bill Wright for making the complicated job of compiling the results look easy. Full results at Cross Crazy.

Reigning champion Jules did a great job of organising both the hillclimb and the Christmas dinner. Once again, due to popular demand we were racing up White Lane(“popular” meaning that people couldn’t face riding up Chalk Pit Lane). Rachel was the fastest girl, Freddy the fastest boy, James was the fastest with a hangover and Euan fastest overall.

Then onto the Beaver Cafe, our regular clubrun cake stop who had laid on a special Christmas lunch for us. We stuffed our faces while Jules and James worked out the results. All the category winners won a VCL-inspired Prendas hat.

Well done to everyone who rode, and a massive thanks to Jules for sorting out the entire day. Click here to see Johnny’s photos on the VCLs Flickr page.

Race day had arrived and Jules B and I had the fun task of driving through central London. After a brief navigational error, we was on our way to Welwyn Garden City. On the way we had got word that Abi Van Twisk had won the Girls Youth race and the week before had podiumed at the National Trophy.

We had arrived just in time to watch the Vets, Women’s and Junior race. Luckily as I was not racing I had agreed to be the pit crew for the VCL. Marek G. was racing in the V50 so I rushed to the pit area “just in case.” Marek was called up and gridded and had a good strong race, even though he has been off of racing for a few weeks. With no mechanical issues to hinder him, Marek finished in 11th

It was soon time for the Senior race. The VCL had 3 members racing; Jules B, Philip G and David S. The guys where ready to race! The field was extremely small with only 28 registered racers and 19 turning up on the day. All of a sudden the whistle was blown and the race was on, Philip managed to get the holeshot and led for 1/4 of the 1st lap. By the time the field had reached me at the pits, Philip was sitting in second and Jules in 3rd! The next time i saw Philip he had settled to a more usual position fighting for top 10′s with Paul Sheers from Vicious Velo. Jules had a bad couple of laps and Philip and Paul seized the opportunity and went past him. He then found his legs again, bridged back up to Philip and Paul allowing the VCL duo to work as a team. They played the old 1-2 for a few laps trying to break Paul until Jules finally got away with 2 to go.

(thanks to Phil Jones from the Dulwich Paragon for the photo)

Philip then sat on Paul’s wheel until the last technical section when he attacked. Ross Tricker (Ipswich BMX club) had a blow out and had allowed Jules to catch and pass him on the last lap. Jules romped home in 7th place and Philip in 9th. David had a off day and had battles of his own at the rear of the field. He set his sights on a Welwyn Wheelers rider who had pulled out leaving him to finish the race on his own. Every time David passed me there was the look of determination with a hint of “im going to finish this if it kills me” but kept on pushing enabling us to become regional team champions! We might have been the only team with 3 finishers but you have to be in it to win it!

It was great fun watching the VCL deliver such an exciting race, and was proud to make the guys comfortable in knowing that the pit crew was there if they needed it.

I would like to thank Welwyn wheelers cc for hosting the event.

Fortunately we had British Cycling’s Talent Development Coach (and long time VCL member) John Scripps to look after us, who did a fantastic job of developing the various types of talent that were there.  By the end of four hours track time, the beginners were all feeling much more at ease, the preparing kids were all feeling ready for next year’s indoor races and the Dads had had more than enough thrills to justify the long drive down the M4 .  Oh, and Rob did several impressive ‘all out’ efforts.

Special mention should go to the younger beginners (Finlay, Alex, Max and Boru) who showed tremendous courage in tackling the intimidating 40 degree banking and to dad Jonny Cheatle, who, in an exercise to find the limit for riding slowly round the top of the banking, was the only person who truly found it!

Some great photos are posted at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vclondres/

A typical VCL contingent was at Hillingdon yesterday for London League Cyclo Cross action, with notable exceptions Phil Glowinski who was 48 hours into a post-birthday hangover, and Abi Van Twisk who was representing the region at the second round of the national trophy series in Leicester.

Good racing in the youth and senior catagories alike, and especial hats off to Jules for a strong 6th place overall in a very fast senior race. Here’s some bunny hopping action captured on the VCLs new DSLR camera from the senior race. Everyone made it over without falling fowl of the punctures, folded and cracked wheels, and general OTB action that were inflicted upon others:

Now in it’s third successive year muddy hell is one of the countries biggest cross races.  A total of 31 VCL riders took part, and we were the only club to have at least 1 rider in every single category.  All involved did their club proud with some great performance’s throughout the evening, from solid results in the youth races, to Phil Glowinski’s flair and eventual 8th place in the last race of the night, not forgetting Conor’s amazing entertainment value.

The evening started with all the youth races. First up was the Under 12′s, where Ivor Patterson rode to an impressive 8th place in a field of over 30 riders.    Next it was the Under 14′s turn, Fred Wright managed to go one better and take 7th place in one of the best costumes of the whole night (picture below).  In the same race Georgie Hopkins finished as 1st girl, despite being one of the youngest riders in the age category.  In the Under 16′s George Jary finished 6th, closely followed by VCL Team mates  Noah Phillips (7th) and Hisham Al-Ramah (8th), making VCL the only club to have more than 1 rider in the top ten.  In their first year as Junior’s Kieran Laurie (6th) and Josh Cole-Hossain (9th) both put it respectable performances

As it started to get dark the first of the senior races got going, with the novice race quickly followed by the women/vets race.  More VCL riders were in action and really getting into the spirit of the event, with fast riding and outlandish costumes. Phil Wright’s (pictured above) had clearly put a lot of effort into his werewolf costume.

The final race of the night saw 9 VCL riders take to the start line. Unfortunately for us, other than the seeded riders we all decided to start next to one another, and were consequently all held up by the same crash in the start straight. Out front Phil Glowinski and Jules Birks were just about keeping up with the race leaders. Phil finished in 8th place, a great result considering the high calibre of the field. Jules was hot on his heels in the closing stages of the race, but suffered a major setback when his light stopped working. Undeterred he ploughed on and luckily caught up with a lapped team-mate to lead him round the final lap. Unluckily for him the team-mate was me, and after upping my pace to keep him in a high position i lost control and ended up in the bushes!

Fancy Dress Winner - VCL's own Mr Blobby

Far behind the eventual race winners was crowd favourite and star of the night Mr Blobby (VCL’s Conor Bunn). Who dazzled the crowds by taking the track centre obstacles in his stride despite a rather unwieldy costume. The now 7ft + frame of Mr Blobby bouncing up and down over the whoops, hopping the hurdle and getting air off of the table top was truely a sight to behold. Conor was a very worthy winner of the fancy dress prize for the night, though riding as Mr Blobby did have it’s down sides – I’m not sure he enjoyed the big hill every lap:

Full results available here

For those who did not take part last year, this routine is designed to improve upper body and core strength, overall flexibility and fine-tune abdominal/lateral breathing.

Using only bodyweight exercises, it develops balance and coordination, helps concentration and relaxation, and aids hormonal release, resulting in a overall feeling of health and well being, improved recovery time and the learning of a sequence of exercises and stretches that can be performed anywhere by anyone – a gift for life.

Suitable to all levels and ages, it is limited to 15 people due to mats availability for the time being – if you own a non-slip yoga mat, please bring it; you’ll receive a pound off the entry fee and one more person can join the class.

Wear loose, comfortable clothing, and bring an extra layer, just in case – no trainers necessary.

Tutor: Joseph Alberti
Entry Fee: Youth £2 – Juniors £3- Adults £5

Please note that those new to the Dulwich Sports Centre will have to register their details and pay a one-off fee of £5 for the pleasure of owning a DCSC membership card, now mandatory to enter the building.
Those who regularly came to the last winter’s sessions should dig theirs out to avoid paying again.

First place for Monica Lichtner and Abi Van Twisk (who has been asked to represent the region and wears the LCCA team jersey) in the women’s and girls’ categories helped the club claim the top step of the podium as its own after a large group of riders including new members Sam Judd and David Smith travelled down to Happy Valley on the South Coast. We had 9 riders in the main race, and 5 in the youth races.

In the seniors race Philip Glowinski led briefly on the first lap but fell back as a group of six riders including Jules established itself at the front. Previous club member, Junior Jack Finch now of his local club VC Deal made an early attack and established a gap. After a crash among the chasing group on the only technical part of the circuit, Jules took the opportunity to pursue Finch alone and soon made contact with the leader.

Over the next few laps the pair worked together to maintain their lead but with the younger rider tiring Jules powered away with two to go and soloed to a convincing win.

The win is the VCL’s best result in the London League for some time and the competition will be eyeing us fearfully at our own race at Herne Hill next week. Phil Glowinski is at the organising helm, as well as racing himself. This is in addition to the Go-Cross event Phil organised earlier this month, and the New Years Day Madison cross the club will also be running at Herne Hill on the 1st of January.

Jules’ strong start to the season means he will be guaranteed a high grid position which is vital for a good result on the narrow trails at the velodrome.