Beresford and Gadd Show their class in commanding victories

Largest women’s field in Odd Down’s history

Oliver Beresford (VC Venta) produced one of the most clinical performances we have seen at Odd Down in the past few years, taking victory in Round 3 of the Odd Down Winter Series from a solo breakaway with room to spare. Beresford responded to an early move from Plan2Ride’s Dan Colman but soon found himself out alone ahead of the bunch with almost 40 mins of racing remaining. With no organisation behind, and Beresford riding consistently, even a late counter attack featuring Ashley Hutchinson (VC St Raphael), Colman, Kieron Goodwin and Adrian Lawson (both Nopinz Latchem Development Team) failed to make any substantial inroads into the breakaway’s lead.

As Beresford cruised round the final laps to his victory, the exodus from the main group continued behind the chasing quartet, with Jamie Atkins (University of Bristol) and Rob Abraham (Bikestrong-KTM) also getting away in the closing stages. That pair could not get close to the battle for second, where Colman dispatched his rivals in the sprint with Hutchinson taking third. This race was all about the 2^nd cat series leader Beresford though, who is looking like it will be hard to stop him taking the overall honours.

The women’s overall 2^nd cat standings are starting to look like they will be a close-run thing, with the top three riders now covered by only 10 points. Lucy Gadd (Storey Racing) and Lauren Johnston (Avid Sport) had come into Round 3 tied on 45 points, having both taken a second place behind Louise Hart (Performance Cycles) in the December Rounds.

Both riders like to attack, and when Gadd countered a move from Luck Monk (Exeter Wheelers) Johnston was the only one who could respond to set the pair off to build a substantial lead. Behind, Maria Powell (Radeon-Bike Science) was working with Monk to keep the leaders in check whilst Avid Sport’s Emily Slavin was clinging to their coattails as her battle with the twists of the Odd Down circuit continued.

As the race entered its final stages, with their lead over the chasers secure, Gadd and Johnston began to size one another up in another tense and cagey finish. Both riders have had success in the sprint, and so we ended up with a stalemate where neither rider wanted to blink first. In the end, Gadd had too much power for her rival, despite being forced to lead the sprint out, and ended up coming home two bike lengths clear.

In the chasing group, Powell and Monk could not shake Slavin and she showed her strength in a straight line to charge away for third place.

With 30 riders on the start line, the women’s 3/4 race was the largest field assembled for a women’s race ever at Odd Down with the 3^rd cat riders looking to take advantage of not racing against the 2^nd cats and the 4^th cat riders getting a taste of what awaits them when they move up to 3^rd cat.

Having scored a podium finish and a 5^th place in the 2/3 race last week respectively, Becky Evans (PDQ Cycle Coaching) and Powell were the riders to watch, and it was Evans’ pace-making in the early laps that began to split the group. She was joined initially by Powell, Lucy Collins and Rose McGovern (Cowley Road Condors). With the alarm bells ringing back in the bunch Rosie Lyon-Smith (University of Bristol), Olive Holliday (Velovitesse), Lucy Scott and Fran Bromley (both Avid Sport) latched onto the back of the leaders with Beeston CC’s Emily Walton caught chasing on her own. With a chasing group of eight riders forming behind, the race was taking on its definitive form.

Bromley could not hold the pace of the leaders, and so found herself dropping back into Walton’s grasp, leaving a group of seven riders to compete for the win. Into a gentle headwind on the finish straight, Evans showed the sprint that has put her into the clear lead in the 3^rd cat overall standings to edge out a strong challenge from Lyon-Smith. It was a messy sprint, with Collins and Holliday finding themselves boxed in on the right and ending up on the grass. The pair held on for third and fourth respectively.

There was also a large field for the men’s 3/4 race, with Bath CC fielding the largest team of eight riders and it wasn’t long before they set to work putting the rest of the pack under pressure with repeated mass surges to the front of the bunch. Their efforts threatened to split the field on a number of occasions, most notably when a trio of Bath riders escaping together. The rest of the pack were up to the task, but Bath’s efforts were not in vain as the gaps were being prised open and the field of 50 starters was shrunk to just 19 by the finish.

This left Rob Pears (Bath CC), who had been prominent in the moves throughout, the chance to put his speed to work and take the win from Liam James-Morris (Team Backstedt/Hotchillee) and Cian Roberts (Towy Riders) in the sprint. Bath’s collective riding was further rewarded with Elliott Barratt and Charlie Shields scoring fifth and sixth as well as Steven Cottington making it four Bath riders in the top 10 with ninth.

Attacking riding whips up a storm at Odd Down

More wintery conditions shred the bunches as the strongest riders don’t hold back

When the going gets tough, the tough get going; cycling is a sport that prides itself on suffering, toughness and overcoming adversity. The riders at Round 2 of the Odd Down Winter Series did cycling proud as another day of stormy weather ripped across the circuit and the riders fought back with a display of aggressive and fierce racing that left no doubt that bike racers live up to the memes and inspirational quotes that surround us as cyclists.

Louise Hart (Performance Cycles) had gone straight for the jugular in the women’s 2/3 race last week, taking the solo win and the Road.cc Combativity Award, and looked to repeat the trick again from the gun. Whilst her coattails slipped through her rivals’ fingers last week, Lauren Johnston (Avid Sport) has plenty of experience going toe to toe in fights at the front of races at Odd Down and was not giving Hart an inch of space. As the pair powered away from Nicole Coates (Performance Cycles) and Becky Evans (PDQ Cycle Coaching) it seemed to be only a matter of time before the ceasefire was called off.

After parking Johnston on the front for a full lap, Hart threw a Haymaker into the toughest crosswind section and prised open a gap of five bike lengths. Johnston looked to be clinging on by her fingernails, but fingernails were enough and the pair were reunited. It was undeniably Hart on the offensive with her companion parrying the attacks and as the finish neared Johnston’s efforts showed as she did not have enough to come around Hart in the sprint allowing the series leader to take a deserved victory. Evans took the sprint for third behind the leading pair, further solidifying her position as leading third cat. Hart’s win gives her a commanding 55 point lead at the top of the second cat standings ahead of Johnston and Lucy Gadd (Liv Halo CC).

In the men’s 2/3 race, the promise of a combativity prize sent University of Bath CC’s Daniel Martin off on an early solo escape. Martin was a credible threat though as a strong time trialist and leading third cat overall and when riders who featured in last week’s successful break started bridging across the move went from speculative to decisive. First Oliver Beresford (VC Venta) and then Will Page (Primera-TeamJobs) blasted across to the leader with Joe Peatson (Bikestrong-KTM) just about latching on and Andrew White (Okehampton CC) just missing out as the gap quickly ballooned to 30 seconds. In following the acceleration of the four riders up front, the chasing group itself was cut down to just five riders with the rest of the pack already well out of contention in the early going.

Beresford and Page had been caught out by a late attack from Latchem Sunwise’s Adrian Lawson in Round 1 and the VC Venta rider was not waiting around for the same to happen again, charging away in the final three laps. His lead hung in the balance as he fought the wind alone whilst his former companions collaborated but as the final lap began it was clear that his gap would be enough. Page followed in for second with Martin in third. The win means that Beresford takes the series lead ahead of Page, with Peatson now in third and puts the previous series leader Lawson down into joint 4th place.

The women’s 4^th cat race was decided by a reduced bunch sprint last week and the race seemed to be going the same way again as the race entered its closing stages. However, last week’s protagonist Joanna Goodhead (Avid Sport) was keeping her powder dry this time around and lit the touchpaper with a lap and a half to go. This instantly split the group, with three riders muscling their way off the front of the pack. Rosie Lyon-Smith (University of Bristol) and Nicola Le Brocq (URDT) were glued to Goodhead’s wheel from the moment she lifted the pace, so when she launched early with the wind at her back Lyon-Smith was in prime position to pip her by half a wheel by the line. Le Brocq was unable to get back on terms so had to settle for third. Despite being denied the win for a second week, Goodhead can take comfort in assuming the series lead with a large 20 point margin.

Michael Beech (University of Bath CC) had waited until the final laps to launch his ferocious race-winning attack last week but when Edward Rees (Ely RC) threw down the gauntlet with an early attack Beech weighed up his options before deciding to go all in early. He blasted past Rees and set off on an impressive individual battle with the wind.

Mother nature, not to mention the rest of the field, didn’t stand a chance as Beech tore through lap after lap for over half and hour, seemingly the only one unaffected by the wind in his face. Rees, despite being left in Beech’s wake, was also building a handsome lead on the chasing group, which had been shrunk to six riders under the impetus of the pursuit. Conor McGoldrick (University of Bath CC) took the bunch sprint for third, matching his result from Round 1. He is now Beech’s closest overall challenger in the 4th cat overall standings along with Rees, although the pair are now 20 points behind. 

On Sunday 7^th October, Isobel Crowther, Sally Crocker and I put out a solid performance at the Chippenham 3-up team time trial. This was a fantastic event and we all thoroughly enjoyed racing for Avid amongst the many SAS black and red jerseys that surrounded us. The course was mostly flat with a few rolling hills with only left-hand turns.

We arrived at Minety village hall near Malmesbury early, the sun was out with blue sky, but it didn’t quite have the heat yet as there was frost still in the field we parked in. We gathered in the warm village hall together before rolling down for a warm up and start. The start turned out to be a bit further than we expected and ended up just getting there a minute before our start time!!

The held start was good (thanks to all those practices in training!) and we were away starting the rotations smoothly as ever despite the road surface being the worst ever. There was plenty of teamwork and encouragement shown throughout the course using each other’s strengths on different parts. 

My favourite part was towards the end when there was a nice flat, straight road that we managed to rotate consistently increasing our speed rapidly before we turned left and heard Chris Crowther shout “It’s all downhill from here”, these were the best words we’d heard for the last hour and gave us a final boost to the finish.

As we rolled back into the village hall, we were greeted with plenty of hot drinks and cake ready for the prize giving. Congratulations to all but we were all very happy finishing in 1:05:00 just in front of a team of males on time trial bikes!

Overall a great event to experience and I would highly recommend it to get some more blue and white teams to next year!

Joanna