John Bornhoft Memorial Hill Climb

           

Saturday 4 October saw the second edition of the John Bornhoft Memorial Hill Climb on the one mile climb of Leith Hill. John Bornhoft was a President of the Kingston Wheelers CC until his death in 2003 and he was a regular on both club runs and races well into his retirement. The race is held in his memory and is a tribute to his work for the club.

There were 39 entries for this well known challenging climb and of those, 30 turned up to face the timekeeper. Stand in organiser on the day and first man off Tim Lawn held best time for 30 minutes until junior rider Alexander King of GWR Team got very close to 4 minutes. With the better riders all towards the end of the field it was expected that there would be some quicker times, but only Ishmael Burdeau (Agiskoviner) and Bill Bell (Gemini BC) got under 4 minutes. Bell is a prolific hill climb rider and was last year's winner of the Wigmore event and a previous winner of the famous Catford Hill Climb. His time of 3.44.5 was a new course record by 3/4 of a second.

Promoting club's Steve Saunders was fourth clocking 4.11.6 to take the club hill climb championship amidst mumblings of fluffed gears and too many extra kilos. South Western RC were also making the event their club hill climb championship and there best rider of 5 was Alan Parkinson in a time of 4.23.8.

Despite all the good racing, the undoubted highlight of the day were the tea and cake in Forest Green Village Hall, courtesy of Gezza, Leona and Rupert.

Click here for the results in full. For full size photos from the event, visit PJW Photos.