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With the cancellation of the club's annual road race, which would've taken place at the end of this month, we thought we'd look back at our first race on the current course. That took place nineteen years ago on Sunday 9th June 2002. Three laps has remained the distance, but for the first 4 or 5 years, there was just the one race.
The previous course, known as the Cavalcade Road Race, was quite central and used Queensway before heading out into the country. It started in 1970, but stopped in 1981, due to a lean time for cycling and a serious lack of club members, which dropped to around 60, with only about half of whom rode bikes, Around the millennium the club enjoyed a bit of a resurgence and a group of about 10 members got the club back road racing again.
A prime mover in all this was a certain Mr Keri Williams, who along with another member Paul Gibson, devised the current course. To quote Keri "We debated long and hard about the number of laps to run - 3 or 4. I was still racing then so rode a test ride, found 3 laps OK, but had to stop at the top of Edge hill after lap 4 to be sick, so we kept it at 3"
Keri was also race organiser for that first race (and the following 5 or 6) and managed to attract an excellent entry of 90 riders, with only 60 permitted to start. Five Star riders were entered, Gary Crook, Paul Gibson, Chris Lawrence, Neil Simpson and Simon Kisley, with Neil the best finisher in 10th place. An extract from the Banbury Guardian's race report of 13th June 2002 is below, together with a photo. Spot the real Star.
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