Due to the fact that I was racing Chrono des Nations on 20th
October, Mark decided that I might as well train for one more week and enter
the BUCS Hill Climb on Saturday 26th October.
The Hill Climb is an event that I have always said I would never
enter. First, I don’t really like
hills. Secondly, I don’t think I’m a
particularly strong climber. Maybe I
just have a mental block on climbing since I was pretty heavy when I first
started cycling and so struggled more than most when the gradient started to
increase. Given that I’m now much
lighter I should be fine on all but the steepest ramps but the idea of doing a
hill climb still terrified me! I think the other problem is that the event was
the BUCS HC. Over the past 2 years I
have been one of the strongest riders at all of the BUCS events I have entered
and so the competitor in me really didn’t want to turn up at the first event of
the BUCS 2013-2014 season and get a kicking.
For whatever reason, the suggestion of entering BUCS HC led to several
arguments in our house but, in the end, Mark got his way (which I think we both
always knew he would) and I entered.
The week before the event I ate (even) less than usual in an attempt to
be as light as possible on the day of the race (it worked – I was 62.7kg on the
Saturday morning which is the lightest I’ve been in my adult life!). Mark was
tasked with the job of ‘slimming down’ my
road bike to give me the best possible chance of getting a good result. Off came bottle cages and the big ring,
saddles were changed to save 100g and skewers were weighed to find the lightest
combination. We did debate whether to take
off the front mech or not but decided that it would be catastrophic if I dropped
my chain during the climb and had no way to get it back on. We also moved my power2max from Pegasus (my
TT bike for those of you who haven’t read one of my blog posts before) to
Artemis (my Scott Foil RR bike) so that I would be able to pace my ride
accurately and not set off too hard – Curbar, the hill the race was on has two
steep sections, at the beginning and end, and those who set off too hard pay
for it in the later stages of the race.
When we were finished the bike was pretty light (though disturbingly
still quite a way over the UCI weight limit), though it did look a little silly
with only a 38t chain ring!
There were 4 women and 5 men competing for Cambridge at the Hill Climb
and I was the last woman off in the BUCS South event. Being the last rider off
was both a blessing and a curse. Having
never ridden a hill climb I had no idea what to aim for or how I would go. When Cassie McGoldrick (Cambridge fresher who
rode for Wyndymilla this season) came back down the hill after her ride with a
time of 7.16, I was concerned that I wouldn’t make it on to the podium (the
winning time in 2012 was 7.17 by Molly Weaver).
Another of the Cambridge women, Holly Page, had ridden in 2011 and
finished 2nd so I really needed to perform well to even make it into
the Cambridge 1st BUCS team (made up of the first 2 Cambridge
riders).
Cassie telling me about her race as I warmed up ready for mine
Soon enough it was my turn to race.
I had been told that the starting holder was not doing a particularly
good job and as a result a few of the women had ended up in the grass verge
after starting. I decided to make sure
this didn’t happen to me and so was slightly bossy, giving him clear and
concise instructions to move me out/in! It worked – I got a clean start,
attacking the first 10 pedal revs before sitting down and settling into my
rhythm. I tend to do most of my climbing
in the saddle and only got out of the saddle around the hairpin bend in the
steep section near the top of the climb.
I knew at this point that I was going pretty well, being slightly ahead
of the time markers I had set myself and able to see my 1-minute woman. I gave it everything I had in the final push
to the line and then stopped dead, barely able to unclip and support myself.
Nearing the finish...
Checking the results board in HQ told me that I had finished in 7.04.4,
putting me in 1st place after the BUCS South event! Natalie Grinczer
had recorded a 7.11.7 for 2nd and George Schwiening, a GB
triathlete, was in 3rd with a 7.15.6. We all waited anxiously for the Northern
women to race. As more and more riders
finished, the top 5 remained unchanged.
It was looking as though the medals were going to go to Cambridge,
Birmingham and Bath until Georgia Taylor-Brown from Leeds Met finished in
7.15.1, knocking George Schwiening out of the bronze medal position by only 0.5
seconds. However, there was celebration
in the Cambridge camp as the time for the final rider came in. Not only had I won but mine and Cassie’s time
combined had given Cambridge team gold! We finished with 3 riders in the top 6
(Cassie was 5th and Holly was 6th), which is an amazing
result. The Cambridge men also came away
with team bronze, making 2013 our most successful BUCS Hill Climb to date.
Medals!
In total the BUCS Hill Climb attracted 300 riders – a huge field! I was
obviously over the moon at the result and extremely proud of how far I’ve come
in the past few years, but I still can’t say that I enjoyed the experience! I
struggle to see the attraction of hill climbing; it feels strange to be going
so slowly whilst putting in so much effort and putting out so much power! It’s
a massive contrast to time trialling, where I am often hitting speeds of nearly
30 mph. Would I do the event again
though? Yes, I probably would.
So with that I reached the end of my 2012-2013 season, but what is odd
is that I ended with the first event of the new BUCS season. It feels a bit strange to now be taking a
break from the bike, though I am enjoying not having to get up early to fit in
a training session before work! I’m now looking forwards to next season and
working out where I can improve from this year.
Hopefully the good results will keep on coming!
