NWCCA Round 4, Clayton Vale
Yorkshire’s Scott Thwaites made the short trip over the Pennines and took the honours at the Eastlands-Sports City ‘Cross in Manchester, the fourth round of the NW Cyclo-Cross League. Richard Wilkinson of the Sport Beans-Wilier team followed up his win in the league the previous week with second place.
The course was based on a small river valley, about half a mile from Manchester Velodrome. A small corridor of greenbelt amid the urban sprawl, its mixture of scrubby tree cover, singltrack, grassland and riverside paths gave the riders a good mix of technical and more open terrain.
From the whistle, it was Road rider Simon Wilson who was the first to show and at the end of the first lap he led by a a couple of lengths from Thwaites. Second time round, though, and Thwaites was away alone at the front and the Crosstrax rider built up a comfortable gap at the front. Behind him, Richard Wilkinson was also making progress after a steady start and he was soon up into second and also circulating alone.
Rob Pugh moved up into third place, demoting Wilson to fourth in the process, but neither was able to make much impact on Thwaites and Wilkinson, though they did at least avoid being lapped, a fate which befell the rest of the field.
Earlier, close rivals Jack Humphreys of Red Rose Olympic CC and Tom Armstrong of Ribble Valley fought out a very tight battle in the Youth race. Armstrong was the one on the front for much of the race, but Humphreys was never more than a bike length back. Driving along together, they soon had a huge gap over the rest of the field and were able to spend their last couple of laps looking at each other and trying to formulate a winning strategy. In the end it all came down to a sprint finish along the riverside, which Humphreys just edged.
The big and enthusiastic Under-12 field had a shorter course of their own and put ona very fine display of riding. Alex Braybrooke of the organising Eastlands Velo club was the winner, but all competitors showed admirable skill through the tricky woodland section early in the lap.
Results