A Summer of Racing

U14 rider Noah Wheller has written this excellent blog post about what PPYCC riders have been up to on track and road during the season so far. Thankyou Noah, and congratulations on securing first place in the SCRL Youth Major category since this post was written!

This year Preston Park has had a great summer of cycling which started off in the early summer with the National Youth Omnium series which ended up leading to some of us racing in the most famous velodromes in the country such as Lee Valley which was recently used in the Commonwealth Games and Herne Hill Velodrome. When the series turned up to Preston Park we had multiple racers in every age group so well done to all of those who came down to race. And to Bill who did an amazing job in setting everything up. Also Eddy, Idha and Milo managed to get wins and podiums in these races as well.

A couple of months after the omniums, Spring in the Park started up again which is road races held at Cyclopark, Kent over eight weeks with a different race happening every Friday evening. Some of the types of races were short and long races, time trial, and to end it all off was the team championships where the winners are the people with the most amount of points from their club on the night (which PPYCC did very well in and achieved 4th out of 20 clubs). Well done to Luke who raced in the U8’s and managed to get a few top 5 finishes out of a very strong field; Alex who dominated U12’s winning nearly every race he went to and eventually winning the overall title; Eddy who got in a few early wins; Noah who got a few top 3 finishes and got 3rd overall for the series. In U16 Ben raced a few of the opening races and Will got a few wins and took 2nd overall in the series. Luke, Alex, Noah, Hadley and Will all managed to get the finishers medal which you get if you complete 5 races or more. These medals were the best I had ever seen with even a hidden compartment inside with a puncture repair kit and your name inscribed in the back. And the trophies were made of old cassettes with 1st getting the largest of the gears and 3rd getting the smallest of them.

In between Spring in the Park starting and it coming to a close, the Road National Series started with Eddy racing up at Loughborough. Then at the London 2 day national Eddy, Noah and Hadley in the U14’s and Will in U16’s raced through 4 brutal stages over 2 days with the first day being held at Redbridge with a one lap TT to start off with and a 50 minute race in the afternoon. And then the next day at Cyclopark there was a short 30 minute race in the morning followed by a one hour race in the afternoon. Then the next weekend was the National Championships which were held in Scarborough where the national champ would be crowned, Eddy who was the only representative of Preston Park had a brilliant race and ended up 4th after winning the bunch sprint.

Another highlight of the year has been the Wednesday night racing (SCRL) which is held at Preston Park which starts right at the beginning of the season to the end and is coming to a close with only a few nights of racing left. In the youth minor there have been a record amount of numbers with usually only around 5 or 6 in the previous years but this year has quadrupled and there have been nearly 20 racers in there.

During all of this happening Guildford crit and Hove Park crit happened. Guildford crit was a great race to do and watch with an exciting and fast course and afterwards you could go and watch the pros do it themselves. And the Hove park crit which Ben, Alfie and Eddy all took part in the couple of nights races.

Starting in the next couple of weeks, Eddy and Idha have both managed to qualify to race in the national track omnium championships in Derby for the national title.