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Junior World Cyclo-cross Champion, Ben Tulett, previews London League course

This week sees my local club, Southborough & District Wheelers, host their first round of the London and South East cyclo-cross league. Event Director (and Rouleur Head Honcho), Bruce Sandell invited Junior World Cyclo-cross Champion Ben Tulett to come and ride the course with some of the Youth and Junior riders from the club on Wednesday December 19th

I can’t deny that it was very cool to see the World Champions stripes on Ben as he rode the course with the kids, who all looked like Christmas had come early. Frankly, it was an early Christmas treat for us adults too. It was an absolute delight to have been come and ride with us and check out some of the hard work the club (and the Schools at Somerhill) have put into making this a great, yet challenging course to race.

 

Ben was very generous with advice for the kids and is a tremendous ambassador for the sport. It’s not often in any sport that you get to join a world champion and all of the riders very much appreciated the chance, spending around an hour riding around the course and chatting with Ben. I noticed him giving some good tips to several of the riders. I imagine they’re more likely to take the suggestion from Ben compared the normal coaches 🙂

 

A feature of the course is a steep climb named by the kids as “Tulett’s Turret”, so it was great to see Ben ride this and pose for photos with the kids

As well as offering advice to the kids, Ben also seemed to enjoy working out the best line around some of the other corners too

 

I attempted to create a short Youtube Video but I’ve not figured out to get it to upload in full HD quality, so apologies for the grainy nature of this short clip:

I of course, managed to crash again, right in front of Ben naturally.