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The 1996 championship was up a classic climb into the North York Moors.
Carlton Bank is nothing like as steep as Rosedale Chimney, the venue the last time the
National Championship was in the North East District (in 1987), but it is a testing
course that needed to be treated with respect. As some of the half-way times show,
if you went off too hard you paid for it later!
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The course was a narrow road, closed to traffic for the event. Gentle at first,
after a cattle grid around halfway it became much steeper. I had ridden up the hill a
few times the day before the championship and planned to ride a fixed wheel, reasoning
that any time I lost while undergeared early on would be regained by climbing quicker
on the long steep section.
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My plans changed on the morning of the race when I found a piece of flint
sticking out of my rear tub. At the time I only had one fixed rear wheel and there
wasn't time to scrounge another, so I played it safe and rode on my road bike instead.
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Having gone steadily to the cattle grid I tried a bit too hard immediately
afterwards, and regretted chasing the RTTC motorbike cameraman when he came past me.
By the finish I was fading fast and reckoned that the course was about a minute too
long to ride the way I did.
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I was pleased with my time, though, and when first Tom Anderson and then Chris
Newton finished slower than my time I realised that a medal was a possibility. Steve
Hulme made sure it wouldn't be a gold medal when he took four seconds off my time.
Jeff Wright was taking a year out of the UK racing scene, in Australia, so Stuart
Dangerfield only had to beat six minutes for his fourth title. This he duly did, to
win by a massive 22 seconds.
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And so ended the season in which I improved the most. I was now a first
category roadman, had finished my first Premier Calendar race (the Tour of the Peak),
set a club record at 25 miles (51-25 on the A34, a time I never came close to again)
and became the first Oxford University rider to win a medal at a National Championship
for nearly 100 years!
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