Autumn is a transitional part of the season with some race series coming to an end while others are just starting. We have many successes to report across them all!
Winter sees the start of the indoor track season and a number of PPYCC riders are traveling up for the London Youth Track League series at Lee Valley Velodrome including Eddie, Noah, Charlie and Gabriel. Congratulations to Charlie who had 4 wins out of 4 races in Round 1 putting him in a strong lead on the league table already.
The South Downs Hill Climb Series is nearing its conclusion. Since PPYCC hosted Round 1 at Rottingdean both Cooper and Gabriel have continued with the series and are looking very likely to claim two of the top three Juvenile/Junior spots in the series overall.
The hill climb series concludes at Ditchling Beacon this coming Saturday. 4 PPYCC riders are signed up for that, it would be great to get even more on the start line given it’s a rare opportunity to climb the Beacon on a closed road and is open to all riders aged 12 or above. Sign up on the Cycling Time Trials website, entries close on Wednesday.
On the hill climb front, Cooper also secured 3rd Juvenile at the Catford CC Hill Climb near Sevenoaks, the oldest continuously-run cycle race in the world having started in 1886 around the time Preston Park Velodrome was opened. An enthusiastic crowd on the 25% gradient made for a memorable morning!
The London and South East Cyclo Cross series is now nearly half way through and lots of our riders have been active here. Thor is currently 5th in U8B, Bibi 2nd in U8G, Luke 6th in U10B, Edie 8th in U12G, Vincent 11th in U12B, Megan 6th in U14G, Felix 5th / Harley 17th / Charlie 27th in U14Open, Idha 4th in U16G and Luca 5th / Hadley 13th / Milo 16th in U16Open. The CX league features highly competitive and very large fields so these are amazing performances all round and it’s great to see all age categories represented, well done to everyone! Congrats also to Hadley for travelling over to the Wessex CX League and getting a 4th place in Southampton last weekend, a superb performance. And Luca deserves a special mention for persevering towards a 4th place after a major mechanical meant he completed most of the last race running with his bike slung over his shoulder!
Prior to CX league starting, the Bedgbury MTB league finished and we had great success in the final standings with Luca 2nd and Milo 5th in U16B, Idha 3rd in U16G, Ingo 2nd in U14B, Harley 2nd and Olly 10th in U12B, and Luke 3rd in U10B. Well done everyone!
As if our riders weren’t breaking out of track and road enough, we’ve also had a very strong season in the South East KidsTri triathlon series. The 5th and final event of the series was held last weekend, a series which started back in May and throughout which many of our riders competed. Congratulations to Luke who finished the series 2nd in the Tristars 1 category and Cooper who finished 3rd in Tristars 2 in what was also a very well attended and competitive race series.
A massive well done to all of our riders for their amazing results across so many different disciplines!