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Catford CC (who lay claim to having invented the discipline) put on a great
event to celebrate their hundredth year of hill climbing and the RTTC's 50th National
Championship. To commemorate the anniversary the medallists were given antique Catford
medals as well as the RTTC ones. Ditchling Beacon was closed to traffic for the race
and it is thought that the crowd at the top of the climb was as big as the crowd that
came to see the Tour de France race up it the previous year when it came to England.
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The course was quite short and not very steep, with plenty of bends so you
couldn't see too far up the hill ahead of you. This made the racing very
straightforward and attracted some of the top names in road racing as well as the usual
specialist riders. The then National Road Champion Simon Bray rode, as did his
predecessor Rob Harris.
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I came to my first National Hill Climb with high hopes having won the British
Universities hill climb championship the previous week on the Nick O'Pendle in
Lancashire. The preparation could have been better - I hadn't seen the course before
the day of the event and rode on a standard 531-framed road bike - but I judged my ride
well and finished strongly to place 15th, which I was very pleased with. I was pleased
with my first full season of racing, having got my second category road racing licence
and gone under the hour for 25 miles.
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The main contest was between reigning champion Jeff Wright and 1993 champion
Stuart Dangerfield, which ended with a decisive victory for Dangerfield of exactly ten
seconds. It was not lost on me that all the top finishers rode fixed wheel machines
and I went away resolving to get one myself for the next season.
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