Eastern Region Wins First Ever Inter-Areas Title

The Eastern Women’s team put in a storming performance to win the Inter-Areas title on Sunday 2nd November 2008. This is the first time the region has won an Inter-Areas title. Much credit must go to the hard work put in by Shaun Aldous to get a team together to follow up the success of the third placed team last year. Not only did Shaun put a great team together but two of the riders used his bikes as well!

His report from the event:

I had a hard job just getting a womens team together this year with 3 of last years team unavailable, Jen Ives has just given birth to a baby boy - Edward, and the other 2 have moved away out of the Eastern region, Rachel Moss and Susan Wood remained. Fortunately Anna Buick joined the league and I saw potential with her racing Foxhall on a MTB. I knew she would be alot more competitive on a cyclo-cross bike as 10th in the trophy showed last week. Anna's Mum Sara Flatt put me in touch with Faith Addison as I still needed a 4th rider to make a full team a couple of days before the closing date. Faith's only done a few Mtb races but again the potential is there.

Both Anna and Faith only finished one cyclo-cross race on a cross bike before the Inter-areas, Faith came over from Norwich for a couple of training sessions with me the two weekends before the event, this paid off at the race.

All 4 of the eastern women started well with the 2 mountain bikers Anna and Faith both at ease in the mud at Husbands Bosworth Airfield, Leicestershire. At the end of the first lap all 4 women were in the top 10 of the 35 rider field. East Midland's Annie Last was already out on her own, last years national trophy winner showed her class and went on to a comfortable win. Eastern’s Rachel Moss had a good battle with Yorkshire’s Jessica Roberts opening a gap midway through the race and holding it to the finish for 2nd place. Being the least experienced I had to grid Faith Addison at the back of the team. Undeterred she worked her way through the field of riders, the UEA student just kept gaining places eventually finishing a comfortable 5th. Susan Wood had a great race, often changing places and seemingly getting stronger as the race went on, eventually losing out in a sprint by half a wheel for 6th to finish 7th. Anna Buick ran out of energy after the 1st few laps having been ill during the week and dropped out of the top 10. With the best 3 to count eastern women scored 14 points, this was too good for Annie Last's East Midlands team whose teammates were still in the top 10 but not high enough. Yorkshire completed the podium.

Both Faith and Anna return to mountain biking next weekend for the start of the Thetford winter series whilst Rachel and Susan will be back on their cross bikes at Mistley for the 6th round of the eastern cyclo-cross league.

Thanks again to Shaun for putting so much work into building the team and congratulations to our women for a fantastic result.

Youth

First up at the event were the youth riders. This year we had a very new and less experienced team, led by Hugo Robinson. Hugo finished in a solid 8th place but I suspect much better results will come later in the season. The A team finished in a good 6th place just a couple of points off 5th. I was delighted this year to be able to field 3 teams of 4 riders and could easily have filled another team of 4 from the regulars racing this season. This is a young squad and only 3 of the 12 move up to the juniors next season.

The individual results were:

Hugo Robinson 8th Eastern A
Sam Connelly 24th Eastern A
Tom Gallacher 26th Eastern A
Alex Anderson 30th Eastern B
Dan Snow 37th Eastern C
Josh Green 48th Eastern A
Sam Bores 51st Eastern B
Alan Trolove 52nd Eastern C
Lewis Parker 56th Eastern B
George Wood 59th Eastern B
Sean Dunlea 64th Eastern C
Alwyn Newstead 67th Eastern C

Eastern A 6th
Eastern B 14th
Eastern C 15th

out of 20 teams entered.

Seniors

A few withdrawals left the senior team down to 4 riders out of 6 with all needing to finish to count. The team was originally due to contain 4 juniors, showing the success of the youth squad over the last couple of seasons. David Nichols was first to pull out due to being selected for the GB team for the European Champs (we had to let him off for that reason!). Tom Castle also had to withdraw due to an injury. Shaun Aldous missed the start of the race due to concentrating on helping the women’s team. However he joined on the back and fought his way through much of the field and up to junior rider Luke Newby. These two were supported by Matthew Cook and Craig Beech. The team finished a creditable 7th out of the 14 entered.

The final results were:

Luke Newby 24th
Shaun Aldous 26th
Craig Beech 38th
Matthew Cook 41st

Veterans

With lots of Dads taking sons to race we entered 3 teams. The results were:

Julian Parker 24th Eastern A
Clive Ling 30th Eastern A
Tim Butler 39th Eastern A
Trevor Holmes 42nd Eastern B
Gary Wood 50th Eastern B
Phil Buick 55th Eastern C
Chris Gooch 59th Eastern C
Steve Green 60th Eastern C
Gavin Rumbles 61st Eastern A (after a mechanical when he was in around 10th place)
Rob Smith 62nd Eastern B

Eastern A 10th
Eastern B 15th
Eastern C 17th

Eastern Area Women receiving their trophy

Faith Addison on her way to 5th overall

Hugo Robinson leads the Eastern A youth team home