Report by Mikey Weavers:
The day started at 5:30 am for a lift to the event which would be my last hill climb of this year, and which Mark had loaned me his Fuji for the day (as a passing comment, it was lovely). We reached Ditchling Beacon for 7:00 am to allow for warm ups and the traditional problems caused by me entering anything: in this case it was my memory which was at fault (again), forgetting my consent form for the race. After some juggling, we managed to get me entered and ready. So the competitors for the day were Gemma Hayes, Nick Martin and me (Mikey).
Doing a couple of warm up reps made me realise how stupidly foggy it was on the hill, which just made the climb more mysterious and imposing This along with a frustrating bit of design on God’s part meant that it was hard to tell where the top was. Every bend looks like the finish is just beyond, and just as you get your hopes up another one comes, until you conceive that the hill may well be eternally corners. At this point you get to the crest of the hill and sprint to a finish line placed 25m from the crest (strange).
Both Nick and Gemma scored top three placings with Gemma securing third in the woman’s category and Nick clinching second in the junior category with my traditional Peter Sagan esc style finishing just outside the placings in fourth.
Times:
Nick Martin 5:17.3
Gemma Hayes 7:03.3
Mikey Weavers 5:45.9
Cheers to Luke for the pictures and to all the people who supported us.
Oh and in case anyone was wondering who we will to beating next year for the title, that honour goes to Peter Tadros with a time of 4:22.
