One of the offers that the recent Velo Birmingham gave away was the chance to visit The Cycle Show on the cheap. I decided to take them up on this, especially as they were hosting the Pirelli Supercrit on the same day.
The Cycle Show
Starting the day off, we had a look round the masses of stalls that made up The Cycle Show. Being held near the end of the month, neither of us were particularly well off so it would be a day of window shopping. The weirdest bit was that it took place in the same area of the NEC that I’ve been to for a few regional conferences at work.
There were plenty of freebies to grab and try out, as well as a lot of competitions (still yet to hear I’m a winner!). It seemed that the majority of freebies were of the nutrition variety. Naturally, we filled ourselves with little bits of bars, gels, and energy drink. I’d just picked up my Velo Birmingham rider pack which had a bottle, so I ended up filling that up a couple of times to really test out some of the drinks.
We had a go on a Wattbike, a first for both us. As someone who has used a ‘dumb’ turbo trainer a lot, it was quite weird to not be in control of the hardness as the bike simulated climbs and automatically increased the resistance. The best part however, and the real reason to have a go was to see the graph that shows how smooth your cadence is. Not being clipped in as we were in real person clothes made this somewhat inaccurate, but we both took away that we were definitely left leg dominant. Something to look at the winter to correct and improve.
We each picked up the world’s lightest road bike, a Tifosi Mons. Weighing just 4.6kg, it makes my light bike at home feel very heavy! The other reason for going was to have a look at the races happening outside – the men and women’s Pirelli Supercrit.
Pirelli Supercrit
The race took place on a criterium circuit that used some of the roads, car parks and one of the exhibition halls dotted around the NEC. The circuit was generally flat, but a small bump after a sharp corner was there to tire out legs over the course of the hour-long race.
As we finally managed to work out how to get outside, the first sight we saw was a rider surrounded by medics. Not wanting to look particularly closely, there wasn’t a lot of the red stuff, but clearly, it had been a bad fall. We didn’t see a crash the rest of the races, but a couple of riders managed to acquire road rash elsewhere on the circuit. Both races ended up with a small group ahead of the main pack sprinting for the win.
The men’s Pirelli Supercrit was won by Jake Hales, with Matthew Gibson and Tobyn Horton making up the podium. Former British national champion Kristian House was 4th in his last ever race.
The women’s Pirelli Supercrit was won by Elizabeth-Jane Harris, Charmaine Porter was 2nd and Anna Henderson 3rd.
Naturally, I took my camera along too, below are some of the best pics.
Pirelli Supercrit 2017 Race Photos
[envira-gallery id=”52598″]
