Wintry conditions even in London.

Performing Commissaire duties for this one, I had probably the hardest day I've ever had officiating.

Although not really showing in the few photographs I took, frozen snow and ice covered most of the course and my initial thoughts on inspecting the course was that it wasn't safe for racing. Fortunately there were shovels and sand on hand and with a lot of effort by a lot of people the worst sections of ice were broken up, and sand applied to the most slippery bits. Racing was delayed a bit, but did go ahead and whilst inevitably there were falls, nobody really hurt themselves, and some at least literally revelled in the conditions.

Jack Finch (VC Deal) extended his lead in the youth category of the league with another win, although for a while it looked as though home rider Harry Franklin was going to take it. Harry built a significant lead but then crashed in to a back marker in an ill judged passing manouvre. This allowed Jack to take the lead, whilst Harry chose to rail against the injustice of what had happened rather than getting back on his bike, inexplicably choosing to retire. Jack had a couple of falls himself, and had to hold off a late charge from Alex Peters (CC Hackney), but another win was secured.

There's a few pictures on Flickr. Link to them here. They are all of the youth race because I was generally too busy to take pictures.

Richard Wood