By John Leitch
Posted: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 - 21:06

 

Herne Hill velodrome saw four of our track riders flying the flag in the team competition on Sunday 12 June.

Organised by the home club VC Londres, it was virtually a national event as clubs from the whole country were invited..... so coming sixth was a great result.

Well done Max Mansell-Rowe, Ben Elliot, Jamie Pullen and Nick Gill.

For you who know them well, you'll realise that those four names means that it must have been a joint team as Nick rides in Sutton CC colours (a result of him being a regular at their events in the past at Calshot velodrome when they booked the venue then let Redhill Raiders piggy-back the booking to make up numbers).

But Nick still trains with us at places such as Leigh.... so not a 75% Raiders' team, more 87.5% Raiders.

At the painful end though (that means in the eyes of officialdom) we were a joint team.... and British Cycling doesn't like that.... because the world body the UCI doesn't like the concept of joint teams.... so they throw a wobbly or two....

.... and as a result ot that our 'team manager' for the day Danyel Pullen had to jump through all sorts of hoops.

But back to the story of the weekend....

It was an omnium.... which means six different events with the results in each of the six being compiled into an overall score.

The top three teams had scores ranging from 38 to 31.

Herne Hill were always going to do well as home side... fielding 26 four-man teams from VC Londres A-team through to VC Londres Z-team.

(Only joking.... they had four teams, so just A to D.)

Other names of note were Sportcity Velo (I think that is Edinburgh), Maindy Flyers (the home brand for riders from Newport velodrome in Wales) and Lichfield City (do they have a velodrome or are they just drifting opportunists like Raiders?)

The next three teams had scores ranging from 13 to 8.

We were on score 8 so you can see, not much of a gap up to the score of the fourth-best team.

Scratch race

Nick came fifth and collected our first couple of points.

Sprints

Ben logged a time of 15.47 seconds.

Individual pursuit

Max ran up another point as he crossed the line in 2min 29sec .

Kierin

Nick fired himself right through to the final, good lad, and ran home in sixth place.... another point.

Devil

We came fifth (I can't find the document any longer and see who it was).... Ben from memory... remarkable as this sort of challenge was a tad too daunting for him at the beginning of last winter... well done.

Team-pursuit..... this time everyone on the track, so all four riders at once.

We were sixth in 3min 40sec.

The top three teams' times:          3min 17sec       3min 21sec     3min 22sec
The next three teams' times:        3min 29sec       3min 34sec     3min 40sec

John