Bristol South CC Hill Climb

Burrington Combe at bottom

This weekend was just one race. Burrington Combe hill climb organised by Bristol South CC. I’ve done this race for quite a few years and have won it for past three years.

It’s a good climb, not too steep, but close to two miles. The gradient isn’t constant but has several ‘ramps’ followed by flatter sections. I think the trick is to build up as much momentum on the flatter ‘fast’ sections and not blow up on the steeper sections. Some people were riding fixed, but, I used a few different gears. In the video below, I notice one person using tribars, but, I think it’s too steep to really benefit from that.

The weather was beautiful but cold. The first frosty day of the year. I warmed up by riding around and took off leg warmers and jacket just before start. You always think you ought to race in shorts, but, it was probably cold enough to justify leg warmers.

I’m not sure I got the pacing exactly right, but managed to do a time of 7.10, 8 seconds off course record. It was good to say there was no tailwind and was quite cold, but, you always hope to go faster than you do.

After the race, I cycled around to Cheddar Gorge and did the climb over there. Thanks to Bristol South CC, also nice to have a good entry of 55 riders.

Top 6

1 Tejvan Pettinger – Sri Chinmoy CT -  7’10
2 Rob Gough Arctic Shorter -  7’27
3 Luke Dunbar – Team Quorz 7’29
4 James Dobbin – Arctic Shorter- 7’36
5 Paul Jones – Bristol South CC – 7’45
6 Robin Coomber – Chippenham & District – 7’57

Good ride by PJ for fifth place. In other years that would have been fast enough for a top three.

Thanks to Severnsi (Neil I think) for uploading this video. I’m race number 55 at about 2 minutes. I took over the two riders in front of me at the cattle grid.

Related

• Hill Climbs
• Burrington Combe