Rider spotlight
2025 season
Caroline Willis
Gravel and MTB
The Gralloch - a scottish monster of a race - a 68 mile gravel race with 6,115 feet of climbing and a Qualifier for the Gravel Worlds. I was properly scared for this event to be honest, it was my first real gravel event. I chose to ride a mountain bike because of the chunky gravel. It was hard from the start and straight up hill, it was the descents that worried me but after the 4th descent I thought yes I can do this - I managed to close down 2 girls ahead of me in my age group and knew that I was 4th!
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I carried on with training and to mix things up a bit I entered the Reigate Cyclocross event in August again on my mountain bike. Lovely friendly event but what a challenge. 5 loops, each time you had to jump off your bike clamber over 2 hurdles - jump back on and attempt to ride up a very steep hill - I never made it and each time I had to jump off and run to the top - that is cyclocross!!
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I now have a gravel bike and I have entered the Graean Cymru UCI World Qualifier gravel race in Wales - a 65 mile 2 lap race with 6,079 feet of climbing. I realised as I approached this race that I had learnt so many lessons from The Gralloch. After 14 miles I had dropped my age group and thought, right all I have to do now is to keep going and going! I did it and much to my surprise and delight I won my age group and Qualified for The Worlds!
Liz O'Connor
Multi discipline
haven’t done a great deal of competitions this year as was training for Ironman, that was my 'A' race for this year; I completed Ironman in Germany in 34 degree heat, took nearly 2 hours off of my previous time and qualified for the World Championships In November 2026 in Abu Dhabi as a Team GB Age Group athlete for Long Course Aquabike.
A month later a friend wanted me to go to a Triathlon at Eaton Dorney as they didn’t want to go alone, I reluctantly said I'd go so I entered the Sprint distance triathlon (so that I didn’t have to stand around at the event waiting for them!), sprint distance is definitely not something I've ever practiced or trained for and didn’t really know how to execute the speed/distance as all I've been trained to do for the last few years is to endure masses of big miles in swim, bike and run. On this occasion it was a true case of 'ignorance is bliss', I went full pelt for as long as I could and ended up winning being top step of the podium!! This then also qualified me again for the World Champs but as a short course athlete.
Gerry Higglett
Gravel
Gerry has been getting the most out of his gravel bike this year! Despite some ongoing knee issues, I competed in the following events. Whilst I have missed out on Worlds for next year as you can see from my face in the photo - I loved it!
Gralloch UCI Gravel Qualifierfinished 23rd
Wales UCI Gravel Qualifierfinish 9th
Reigate Cyclocross not sure where I finished in the bunch.
Surrey Gravel Epic 3rd
Glorious Gravel Sherwood Pines Trophy finished 12th 60+ men
Glorious Gravel Thetford Forest Trophy I finished 5th 60+men
Jamie Mackenzie
Crits
Year 4 of racing had a firm target to obtain enough points to get promotion to Cat 2. It had been a relentless off season of training through those miserable winter months to give me the best chance of achieving 40 points - come April I was ready not to see my turbo ever again! After a cold start to the season down at Thruxton to get my racing legs back, the first points came a week later with a 6th place finish at Preston Park. A steady stream of top ten finishes followed throughout spring getting my closer to the point target. A few frustrating races in July slowed progress but a big push at some Mountabatten evening crits yielded the remaining points! I have to thank my commitment to cake stops, first class wheel sucking skills and hill avoidance to fluke a Cat 2 licence - hit me up for the cake recommendations.
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It has been a brilliant season racing with the others and seeing so many of us make the jump to Cat 2 next year. Looks like another few months with a sweaty towel...
