The club held its first British Cycling circuit race at Odd Down on Saturday, with three races taking place through the afternoon on the 1.5 kms track in Bath.


First up was the women’s race which had a strong entry of 22 riders.  It was a lively race with several attempts from riders to get clear.  The Ride 24/7 pairing of Phoebe Speck and Corinne Clark were working well together to drive the pace on, as were various combinations of riders from the Army CU team.  The bunch was whittled down but, in the end, noone was able to make anything stick and it came down to a 10 rider sprint for the finish.  VC Walcot’s Jenny Holden just grabbed the win from Elizabeth-Jane Harris and Sydnie Price (M and D Cycles).

There were nearly 40 riders in the 4th cat men’s event, which started steadily but gradually ramped up and got quicker throughout the race.  There were no escapees from the bunch so the field came in together, with Sam Calder (Beeline Cycles) winning after pulling clear with Ben Matthews in the run in.  Jack Thompson (Performance Cycles) just pipped Ben Lang (Cadence RT) for third.

The final race was the 2nd/3rd cat event.  There were numerous breakaway attempts, from both solo riders and small groups, but all were chased down.  Our very own James Hywel-Davies was having his first race at this level, managing to hang in there for around two thirds of the race with a great never-say-die effort before finally getting dropped.  With two laps to go, Calum Croft of Primera launched a solo attack and looked to have the race in the bag until the bottom hairpin when the tub on his rear wheel rolled off causing a spectacular and unfortunate exit.  Three riders from Swansea University had been heading the chasing bunch and they maintained their lead out for their nominated sprinter Jordan Wade who took a narrow in from Live 2 Ride’s Luke Nolan.

Thanks to everyone who helped out on the day, there were lots of compliments from the riders afterwards – James Foster, Mark Geddes, James Chant, Mike and Pam Donovan, Geoff Percival, Jim Broom, but especially to Pete Humphreys and Mike Smith whose excellent pre-event organising ensured everything went well on the day.

There are some photos on the GDW Facebook page
Full results on the BC website