The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Spalding Cycling Club’s short and eventful competitive season ended last week with two final events.
The first was the Hill Climb, which took place on the west side of Hanthorpe Hill, Edenham.
It involved a flat out sprint over a distance of approximately 0.35 miles up a gradient of between five and eight per cent.
It was an excellent evening for racing and 20 competitors took part, some of whom rode out and back.
On the night the top three were the young up and coming riders Matt Ellis, Tom Wright and Brynn Richards – with only 2.14 seconds separating first and third.
The top five, which was completed by Josh Wallis and Dave Earth, all recorded times under a minute.
The final event the Dash Down the Delph, which involves a road closure on the Delph at Pode Hole to allow young riders not normally allowed to race on roads with traffic, to compete.
The event comprises a series of sprints over 250, 500, 75 and 1km, with competitors aged between 13 and 80.
Each competitor sprints each distance and the times for each distance added up to decide the winner. The social – but always competitive – event benefitted from sunshine and a brisk wind.
This year two further events were added; a mad mile with individual riders racing over one mile and matched sprints between pairs drawn randomly until eventually, after several rounds, there is a winner.
As was expected the top spots in each event were keenly contested between Matt Ellis and Tom Wright with only the narrowest of margins separating them in each event.
Ellis won the men’s sprints from Wright, as well as clinching the knockout title.
But Wright turned the tables to pip his rival to top spot in the mad mile.
Velvet Bowser also won the ladies’ sprints, while Jack Bowser topped the youth sprints standings.
Simon Hare was the other winner in the over-60s sprints category.
