London CX League Round 12, Cyclopark Badlands, run by Bigfoot CC. A rainy, cold, windy and pretty miserable winter’s day greeted us – perfect for CX! Lughaidh started from the third row of the grid and really got moving on the first couple of laps carving his way through the field with good lines, power bursts and dismounts to get to 5th. Lughaidh held this position to the line with a very focussed ride, which is his best this season in the series. Freya and Charlie Hart …started on the 3rd row of the grid of a large U12 field. Charlie quickly pulled away from Freya but had an incident with another rider leaving him bravely carrying an injury for the remainder of the race. Freya stayed close to the 2nd girl and series leader Emily Lines of Darenth For half the race finally managing to pull away and put some distance between them by descending the bank quickly and braking last minute for the 120 degree turn (exactly as dad had coached!). Freya managed to catch the injured Charlie on the hill before they unluckily had a bit of a coming together – thankfully without great disadvantage to either rider! Freya got away more quickly and both riders held their positions over the last lap or so finishing respectably mid-field, with Freya finishing 2nd girl ahead of the 1st and 2nd placed girls in the London CX series. Really good to see Charlie Hart out today and credit to him for seeing the race out despite being injured. Also Thanet RC’s Caroline Rigby took part in the women’s race (106th place in women and vets race) A great Thanet RC effort all round!
Post by Colin Robinson and Phil Cook