BUCS CX Championships 2011

Well, it has been our nemesis for a few years and 2011 proved no different, with Leeds placing 5th in the team competition, represented by Mike Jones in 12th, Tom Bell in 13th, Henry Stam in 26th and John Guly in 28th.

With Mike and Tom both on Mountain Bikes, little could be done to hold the pace of the leaders who were on the right equipment and in shape from a season of CX racing. The course proved to be incredibly slippery in the corners (Mike having a major slide and subsequent stack on Lap 2) and with a huge banking in the middle, it made the race very slow going (especially for Tom who lost about 45 seconds on one lap through shoddy banking technique!). In addition, towards the bottom of the course were two long, flat, open drags, giving those riding a CX bike even more of an advantage over the struggling MTBers.

Feelings of nausea and utterances like "I'm never racing cyclocross again" were in plentiful supply post-race, but be assured there will be some sort of representation there next season!

On the plus side, we are pleased with how training is going and form is building for the MTB championships and intend to go all the way in Wales. We used this race as training and will show the other Universities how "real" off-road riding goes down.

Below are a few team shots from yesterday's race. Enjoy.

British Cycling + Kit

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we are a British Cycling affiliated club this year.
If you are racing, please add the LUUCC as one of your clubs and give the University some exposure!

The best membership package to get I believe is a Silver membership with a racing license. Gold membership seems to include a load of stuff that isn't really needed or worth the extra cash.

Please let us know of your success too. Send us pictures and reports of you racing and we'll stick them somewhere for people to see.

As you may or may not have seen, in the last few days, British Cycling or more specifically, the regional committee for this area dealing with affiliations has objected to a certain slogan on our kit, which reads "Moist and Chewy". Although this is a slogan of our sponsors Torq and simply a description of the Torq bar products, we have been told it may cause offence. We have had nothing but praise on all aspects of our kit design and we are a little angered that British Cycling charge such a high affiliation fee for teams with sponsors and then tell us to take parts of the kit away.

Anyway, after that little rant, I would like to say that we have an easier way of ordering kit for our members. This involves the club shop facility on the Impsport website. Members can now order kit whenever they wish and get it delivered to them direct, without having to wait for a bulk order from the club or arrange picking it up from whoever was unfortunate enough to have the whole order dumped on them. When you want to order kit, please email the club and we will provide the password for the club shop.

For now, please don't order any kit as it is in the process of having the slogan in question removed. We'll let everyone know when the design is updated and ordering can begin.

Website: www.impsport.com/myclubshop.asp

Ride times and lengths

Our rides have traditionally gone from the same place. This is the former site of our sponsors Stif Cycles, who were previously situated in the centre of Headingley, next door to Jam Hair Salon and over the road from the Post Office. Although Stif have moved on to Summerbridge, we continue to use this car park as our meeting spot. Search Jam Hair salon on Google Maps and locate the small car park to the left of it. That's us.

Our weekly rides are as follows:

MTB: 
Wednesdays at 2PM
Sundays at 11AM

Road:
Wednesdays at 2PM
Saturdays at 11AM

Our wednesday rides run for 1.5-2H for both Road and MTB.
Weekend rides will go from 1.5H up to 3.5H for both. If there are enough people, we may split up and take a longer/faster or shorter/slower ride. These are not training rides however, and only for leisure.

Our rides and where to check out

In Leeds we are blessed with the best of both worlds; go one way and you have the city and all the benefits of urbanized living, with shops, university, restaurants etc, and head just a few miles the other direction towards Otley and one has mile after mile of tranquil countryside. As a cycling club, this suits us down to the ground.

As a club which specializes in both Mountain Biking and Road riding, we have fantastic and varied routes for both disciplines. Here I will explain some of the best spots to head to.

MTB


Meanwood
This is where many of our MTB rides head, beginning just one mile from Headingley. Meanwood is a mixture of fast but technical single track, steep climbs and fire road. It is great to have a blast round, improve your handling skills and discover some hidden sections. At the far side of the wood is a place we call "Adel jumps". This is constantly being built and improved and has a wicked section of jumps and berms.

Stainburn
Located about 11-12 miles out of Leeds on the far side of Poole, is the hill-top Stainburn Forest, dubbed by many as the most technical MTB trails in the country. Although small, there are a number of trails here to improve and test your technical skills, with steep climbs and descents, North Shore and more. It is a fairly flat ride out from Leeds, with a monster hill climb to reach the forest. Recommended.

Road


Almost all of our road rides head from Leeds towards Otley and Ilkley. The best roads generally to reach Otley run to the right hand side of Leeds road and pass alongside the picturesque setting of the Harewood estate.

From here, one reaches the Poole road which passes through Arthington. A great ride which features some rolling hills takes you up to Armscliffe Crag and round to Poole.

Another option is to head through Poole, and towards Leathley, over Norwood Edge climb and out into the Yorkshire Dales, towards Summerbridge and Pateley Bridge. This again is a long rolling road that gives access to some great climbs such as Greenhow Hill.

To extend the above ride, we like to head further to a place called Grassington which is a very pleasant village for a coffee stop. The roads are quiet and rolling, with some awesome views, climbs and descents.

A final favourite of ours leads us beyond Ilkley and towards the roads in the Bolton Abbey area. This is a slightly less hilly means of heading to Grassington, taking in fantastic settings of Bardon on Scale and Burnsall. Before reaching Grassington, it is possible to take the road all the way to Skipton, which is another place worth a visit if you have the legs to get there.

We'll hopefully be showing you many of these places and more on our future rides. Feel free to take these places as milestones and create your own routes to ride. There are some great roads to play with!

Results

The club has seen some major success since its beginnings in 1997 and has had some classy riders pass through over the years. This post will be a document of our results this year in BUCS competitions as well as a look at our results from last year. (Will be updated after every event)

We aim to step it up each year and having only completed the Hill Climb Championships this year so far, we have already begun to set new club records...

2009/10 Season results

BUCS Hill Climb: Team Bronze

BUCS CX: Team 4th

BUCS MTB: XC Team Bronze

BUCS 3-up TTT: Team Bronze

BUCS 10mile TT: Individual 4th

BUCS 25mile TT: Individual 7th

BUCS Road race: Individual 3rd

2010/11 Season results

BUCS Hill Climb: Team Gold (new club record)

BUCS CX:

BUCS MTB:

BUCS 3-up TT:

BUCS 10mile TT:

BUCS 25mile TT:

BUCS Road race:

A few photos here of us at the above events too:

A little about our Committee...

Many in the club may not be familiar with those running the operations, so here is a little about us...

Tom Bell
Tom is an Elite level XC rider and the club's captain for 2010/11. He has been a member of the club since 2008 and has helped to earn a number of medals in the BUCS competitions. Tom deals with the Union, organizes transport, accommodation and race entry, as well as trying to lead some of the club rides on the road and trail. He is studying English Language.

Michael Jones
Mike is our kit secretary and assistant to Tom and Jim (secretary) and helps with all aspects of running the club. He is an XC rider and racer who has also won his fair share of medals in BUCS competitions as well as some top performances nationally as a Junior. He assures us he will return one day. Mike is out most weekends on the MTB rides and is the guy to see with any questions. He has been a club member since 2007 and is studying Product Design.

Jim Simpson
Jim is a second year member of the club this year and is the club secretary, dealing with emails and guiding people on the MTB rides. Jim is a great all round rider and deceptively fast downhill. He was our fastest Downhill rider at the 2010 BUCS championships and will be trying to step it up this year in Wales. He is studying Robotics.






You can contact any of us at the club's email address. Please ask away on anything (we like to think we know our stuff)

A little about our sponsors...

For those who don't know much about our sponsor's, here is a brief overview...

Stif Cycles are our title sponsor and have had a long partnership with the club. Now located in Summerbridge with a huge showroom, the shop is now offering a larger selection of kit, bikes and accessories than its previous days in the characterful but cramped Headingley store.
Stif's main brands include Santa Cruz, Scott, Fox and Orange. They gratefully provide the club with money throughout the year and we are thrilled to continue our association with them in 2011.

Website: www.stif.co.uk



Torq Fitness supply us with heavily discounted energy food products, from gels and bars to energy and recovery drinks. They are a well respected company in the energy foods industry and know for their research-led products, as the company's roots are originally in fitness consultancy.


Website: www.torqfitness.co.uk