Pearce Cycles Series Round 5 – Kinsham

The 5th round of the ever popular Pearce Cycles Race Series headed to Kinsham. With massively contrasting conditions over the two days the racing was wild.

Practice on Saturday was pretty much the perfect conditions, fast and dusty up top, loamy and steep at the bottom. The day started with the main obstacle being a sizeable ski jump near the bottom of the course, first guy down, straight off it, then people seemed to find their common sense from somewhere and saw that maybe it might be a bit big for them, yet some still attempted this near 25ft gap, into a long, insanely fast berm… or over it in some cases (hope you heal up soon to the fella who tried to play pinball with the trees and ended up with a big hole in his leg). After some careful consideration, that was the end of the fun, and the jump was closed, and turned into off camber chute. As the day went on the corners got more and more blown out and the track seemed to get more and more treacherous. With some well needed track maintenance going on after practice, it was looking good as new for race day.

Race day was like Saturday never happened, completely different conditions, with the track looking more like a slip and slide. But it did make for an amazing race, with trees falling onto the track due to gale force winds and people realizing it was faster to throw their bike and chase it than actually try and manoeuvre themselves through the maze of tight turns through the steep, dense forrest. The riders weren’t the only people struggling in the mud this weekend, an army of people and land rovers pulling cars out of the field all the while their frivolous attempts getting heckled and laughed at the commentator and on lookers. So, although it did rain… a lot, it was once again an amazing weekend put on by Pearce Cycles, Ludlow.

Results

Elite Men
1. Jay Williamson 2:05.462
2. Glenroy Martin 2:07.415
3. Alex Florian 2:07.993

Expert Men
1. Jamie Miller 2:08.311
2. Sean Davies 2:11.050
3. Sean Smith 2:11.065

Juvenile Men
1. Jack Mills 2:42.166
2. Harry Barrett 2:45.606
3. Joe Bower 2:55.620

Youth Men
1. Charlie Hatton 2:15.193
2. Mathew Walker 2:19.633
3. Kyle Havard 2:19.745

Junior Men
1. Shaun Richards 2:07.580
2. Matthew Barrett 2:15.786
3. Elliot Downes 2:23.002

Senior Men
1. Zac Blackwell 2:09.781
2. Daniel Sibbick 2:12.870
3. Iwan Griffiths 2:13.702

Master Men
1. Jon Brain 2:14.750
2. Dave List 2:20.981
3. Neil White 2:21.355

Veteran Men
1. John Cobb 2:30.827
2. Jason Hicken 2:32.722
3. Glen Peppett 2:37.165

Grand Veteran Men
1. Richard Abbot 2:52.975
2. Dave Wills 3:13.163
3. Michael Giles 3:14.314

Elite Women
1. Suzanne Lacey 3:08.576

Youth Women
1.Sumayyah Green 5:16.372

Senior Women
1. Nik Burscough-Brown 3:27.011
2. Sarah Staples 3:59.981

Veteran Women
1. Lindsay Hanley 3:41.973

Film and Photo by Taylor Smith