Monday, September 13, 2010

Team Welwyn riders in Spalding Grass Track Action

Following his brilliant weekend at Mildenhall, Phil Lisher was back in action at the Spalding Grass Track last weekend, along with club-mate Simon Layfield. With Simon now coming back to form and Phil absolutely flying, they looked forward to a good day’s racing at this excellent promotion. Phil opened the day with a win in the 400M Scratch, winning a superb track frame, kindly donated by www.webbline.co.uk, one of the meeting sponsors. In the Devil take the Hindmost that followed Phil was second, pipped at the line by Lewis Meadows, York Cycle Works, while Simon finished in fifth place.

In the 3km+ Unknown Distance, for riders not qualifying for the 400M Final, Simon finished in fourth place behind local star Alex Avery, of the promoting club while the 3km Scratch was a win for Phil with Simon in sixth place. In the ‘Win and Out’ event, similar to a Course de Primes, both Simon and Phil succeeded in reaching the Final sixth riders and Phil won the event, however a bad crash involving two of the Spalding CC riders gave Simon a scare as the race entered the second lap and he was duly cautious in the re-run for second to sixth places, finishing fifth.

In the 8KM Scratch that concluded the weekend, Phil covered an early move by Alex Avery, which also took Lewis Meadows clear of the field. With the gap swiftly widening to half a lap it was soon clear that the race was over for much of the field and as Phil and Meadows dropped Avery it turned into a two horse race. As the flying twosome started to lap the field in the final two kilometres of the race, Phil began to pull clear of a tiring Meadows and finished the race alone, another convincing win, while Simon came in behind the chasing group but took a solid ninth place.

Sunday saw Team Welwyn members in enjoyable and sociable club run action, stopping at the ever-popular Emily’s Tea Room in Whitwell. Next weekend Phil has a mini-break before starting preparation for the National Hill Climb Championship in late October, while Simon takes on pacing duties at the Reading Dernyfest.

Brilliant Mildenhall Results for Phil - Soph's Rally Report

The Bank Holiday weekend saw Phil Lisher and Simon Layfield in action for Team Welwyn at the famous Mildenhall Cycling Rally in Suffolk. With Phil having already secured the overall win in the season-long National 800M Grass Track Series and lying second in the National 8km Grass Track Series, Mildenhall hosted the last rounds of each and gave an opportunity for Phil to cement podium finishes in his first successes at National level.

The Sunday events commenced with a Keirin race for senior Group B riders, in which Layfield, now coming back to form after a year of below par performances following a back injury, won his heat with ease. Lisher followed with a heat win, executed with the same aplomb in the A Keirin. The finals proved to be a somewhat tougher nut to crack with Simon finishing fifth and Phil going one better with fourth in their respective events.

In the Senior B Devil take the Hindmost Simon was a good sixth, while Phil crossed the line in fourth place in the Senior A Points Devil but with the overall result rather unclear. The Senior B 3KM Scratch followed after some rain breaks and into the teeth of a strong and cold wind, which was making going tough in the back-straight, riding strongly Simon finished in seventh place after an attack by Alex Avery, Spalding CC, split the field.

In the final round of the 8KM Scratch Series Phil was up against the strong Cottingham Coureurs duo of Richard Lambert and Matthew Fenton. Lambert had already secured the Series win and could not be overtaken, however Phil, lying second overall, was potentially vulnerable with Fenton capable of overtaking him for the silver medal position if he could put a few places between the two contenders, taking maximum points and finishing at least three places above Phil.

Aware of the danger Phil rode towards the front of the race from the start and cannily covered an excellent early move by Simon Daw, CC Sudbury, knowing Daw’s strength from previous encounters throughout the season. Followed up by Fenton there was soon a good move going smoothly away from the bunch and as the pace piled on at the front Daw dropped back toward the bunch, leaving Philo and Matthew Fenton at the head of affairs. As the gap lengthened and they started to lap some of the back-markers, Lambert realised the danger and took off in pursuit but could make little impression on the flying duo, in spite of riding the remainder of the bunch off his wheel.

As Phil and Matthew lapped the flagging field, Phil attacked and opened a gap on his rival which gradually widened as the race progressed. Lambert also made contact with the bunch and picked up and dropped his team mate to take second place behind a very dominant, tactically astute and stylish ride from Phil. Second place in the 8km National Series secure Phil could relish a job well done and look forward to Monday’s final round of the 800M Series.

With Monday proving to be somewhat warmer and drier than Sunday, the track was in top form for the shorter, faster effort required in the 800M Series. With Simon Layfield having other commitments for the Bank Holiday, Phil was Team Welwyn’s sole representative but he certainly made his mark.

Starting with heats Phil took the front from the start and completely dominated to take a good solid win and make his intentions clear. The semi-final was a similarly dominant performance in spite of the fact that the seeding for the event put the Series second placed rider and former World Speedway Champion, Tim Snook of Ipswich BC in the same semi-final as Phil. Going into the Final there was a superb field of Grass Track experts assembled, including 2010 National 400M Champion Rowan Elliott, VC St. Raphael, a daunting line-up and with the Series already in the bag, would Phil rise to the challenge? Not really a question that needed asking as it turned out, after seeing off an early challenge from Rowan Elliott Phil took the front and dominated the final, in complete control as he took a superb win.

Thanks are due to expert volunteer pusher Ian Clarke of Fenland Clarion, who ably assisted Phil through all the 800M rounds.

Editor's note: check some photos from the Mildenhal Rally on Flickr here.

Friday, September 10, 2010

TW's Austrian Chipper in Action

After a summer of limited cycling training following the birth of our son, I had intended just to cruise round the only race of the year that I had entered.

The Eddy Merckx Classic Radmarathon runs through 155km of beautiful countryside, with the final 60km taking in some fairly tough climbs. A friend from New Zealand was visiting and a gentle potter would have been a fun way to spend the day.

However, after 20km, I couldn't find my friend in the bunch and a red mist had filled my head: I was going to race this MF as hard as I could. It made no sense, I didn't need to and beforehand I hadn't even wanted to. But what the hell, I wanted to make my legs hurt.




For the next 100km, things went well. The climbs were not proving difficult and I was sitting comfortably in the main peloton. We hammered through Oberösterreich, past Mondsee and back into Salzburgerland and the village of Thalgau. Then, as expected, everything split on Thalgauegg and I was riding with a little group, not too far down on the leaders.

Dropping into Fuschl, where my family and friends cheered us through, was a marvelous feeling - I was a proper racing cyclist again.


Reality struck 5km later as I was promptly dropped on the Perfelleck, a short sharp ascent out of Fuschl. It was here I realized that motivation and experience couldn't account for a lack of longer distance endurance training.

There was about 30km to the finish and a shedload of climbing in the way. My thighs felt fatigued and despite eating four bananas and two energy bars, I thought I was on the verge of bonking.

Over the Gaisberg, the penultimate mountain and longest climb, was awful. There weren't enough gears on my bike and more and more people passed me. "Well," I thought, "I wanted to hurt my legs, so I better get on with it."



The descent was long enough to recover slightly and I caught one rider up before the bottom. But the final hill dragged and I was dropped again, left to my own thoughts about why on earth I was doing this and how much I was looking forward to a radler.

After 4hr 46min I rolled through the finish, in 70th place out of 350 and 25min down on the winner. An OK result. Could have done better if I was fitter. But I guess that despite however much I want to be, I'm not a proper racing cyclist anymore. I'm just an old chipper who still likes trying to beat people and making his legs hurt.


Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Props to the Trotts

Team Welwyn supremo Sophie wishes to congratulate the Trott sisters on their ongoing successes.

"Laura Trott was coached by us from age 8-14. She's now 18, just won world track junior gold and two silver medals, and also came fourth in the road TT. She has been picked for the Commonwealth Games track team.

"Her older sister Emma was coached by us from age 10-15 and is now 20, rides for a pro-team in Belgium has occasional outings for Great Britain on the road. She has been picked for the CG road team - a huge congratulations from TW to the both of them!"


Emma Trott


Laura Trott

Mildenhall Grass Track Photos

The team were in action at Mildenhall's legendary grass track weekend a couple of weekends ago, picking up some choice results. Here's a few shots of Phil and Simon in action courtesy of Rollapaluza's Flickr feed. The full gallery can be found here.