National Hill Climb - The Rake
View: Video of Hill Climb (Uses Windowes Media Player )
(Half way up the climb - It's a great view from the top.)
This years national hill climb was held in Ramsbottom, Bury on the steep climb of the Rake. The event was organised by Lancashire RC. The climb is quite short only 900 yards long but towards the end the climb gets close to 25%. It was used in this years Tour of Britain and was also used for the National Hill Climb Championship in 1999.
Many riders such as Jim Henderson were riding fixed gears, this helps to make the bike slightly lighter but looses some flexibility as you can easily be overgeared for the last part of the climb. I don’t have a fixed bike but use a single chainring 39 with a standard sprocket on the back, see hill climb bike
When I arrived in Ramsbottom it was raining quite hard, but fortunately this cleared up by the time I was racing. However it left the roads wet, which meant the road was quite slippy.
The climb starts in the centre of town and is run on closed roads. Being close to many cities there was a good crowd of spectators lining the route especially at the top. Its difficult to remember much from the climb it seemed to be over quite quick. It was the first time I had ridden in the wet this year and had a problem with my back wheel slipping in the wet. When I turned the last corner on to the steepest section there was a great noise from the crowd at the top of the climb. It gives you a real boost just as the climb is getting the most difficult. At the top of the climb there is another 50 yards or so of flat, where you could easily gain or lose a few seconds. There were even marshals at the top waiting to catch you in case you fell off your bike with exhaustion.
Jim Henderson (Southport CC) narrowly missed out on winning a 6th title, he was beaten by a margin of only 0.3 seconds (or 240g as he worked it out) by Ben Greenwood.
Ben Greenwood (Recycling.co.uk) is just 21 and has represented Great Britain at under 23 level. However he has not done many hill climbs so far.
I finished 12th overall in a time of 2.39.1. only 9 seconds off a medal so I was quite pleased.
3rd place was French based David Clarke (Rayon D'Argent ) Rob English had a good ride to finish just outside the medals in 4th place.
1 Ben Greenwood 2:26.5
2. Jim Henderson 2:26.8
3 David Clarke 2:31.9
4 Rob English 2:33.9
5 Matt Clinton 2:34.2
12 Richard Pettinger 2:39.1
Team prize went to Arctic Shorter Rochford who had 3 riders inside 2.39.
Next year the National Hill Climb Championships will be Devon and the Hill is twice as long so should suit me more. This was the last race of the season, so will be enjoying a break from racing until March.
Video Of Hill Climb
Thanks to Nick Pashley for sending me a 30 second video of the climb. Nick was president of Oxford University CC when I was on the committee nearly 10 years ago.
View: Video of National Hill Climb
You can hear the commentator having a bit of difficulty pronouncing the name of my club Sri Chinmoy CT.
( Sri Chinmoy is pronounced Shree Chin ~ moy)
