On 21st October, the day after BUCS Hill Climb, OUCC hosted it’s annual hill climb on the HHC035 course in Wytham, which doubled up as the OUCC championships. Overnight rain cleared and left a cold but sunny morning; perfect hill climbing conditions for the fifty-seven riders tackling the course.

Seb Morton (OUCC) set the early pace, clocking a solid 4:11, which led for a long time and eventually earned him the title of OUCC Hill Climb Champion, ahead of Jack Brent (4.17) and Patrick Hegarty-Morrish  (4.27). There was a similar wait for Cyndi Goh; going off as the sixth rider, Cyndi clocked a 5:12 (the day after a top 20 at BUCS!) and had an anxious wait before being crowned OUCC Hill Climb Champion.

In the men’s open event, Nicholas Candy (North Road CC) was the first under four minutes which and afforded him at least twenty minutes in the hot-seat, before agonisingly being removed from the podium as each of the last three riders off went quicker! Richard Gildea (Didcot Pheonix CC) took the victory in a new course record of 3.33, ahead of Greg Fitzek (ZeroBC Development) in 3:42 and John Hale (WORX Factory Racing Powered by Silverstone) in 3:47. 

Not content with defending her title, Anabell Orenz (North Cotswold CC) took her own course record with a 4:36, beating her 2017 mark by a full 9 seconds! Helen Keay (Cowley Road Condors) was the only other rider to go under 5 minutes, clocking a 4:52, with Cyndi Goh (OUCC) rounding out the podium.

It was a close affair in the team event, where Didcot Pheonix CC’s 12:39 (Gildea, Cowan, James) narrowly beat OUCCs 12:56 (Morton, Brent, Heggarty-Morrish); we’re already looking forward to the rematch, Pheonix! Cowley Road Condors (Fry, Keay, Ilman) took bronze in the team event, with 14:02.

Full results can be found here, and photos (free!) can be found here. We’d like to say thanks again to the organisers, volunteers and riders for making this year’s event such a success, we’ll see you next year!