Cram and Farran win in County Durham
Blaydon CC’s Marcus Cram and Hannah Farran (Boompods EDCO) were fastest male and female riders respectively at the Houghton CC hill-climb on a wet Quarrington Hill course in County Durham on Sunday.
The leaf-strewn course gave riders a tricky challenge, and the predicted tail wind was absent.
Cram clocked1-59.0 for the course to finish eight-tenths of a second quicker than prolific hill-climb winner Zeb Kyffin (Ribble Pro Cycling), with Matty Smith (Muckle CC) third.
“It’s a great feeling to get my first open win,” said Cram. “ The course suited me well and I knew I’d be in with a shout if I could go sub two minutes. An added bonus with my better half getting on the women’s podium too. Many thanks to the organisers for putting on a great event in testing conditions.”
In the ladies competition there was another strong win for Hannah Farran of Boompods EDCO NRG, who said after the race: “I’m very happy with my performance given the weather conditions. The course suited me as it had a sharp gradient in the middle which evened out at the top. My power was definitely where I wanted it to be today and I think I paced the effort well.”
Farran clocked 2-38.6 to win the women’s category by 8.2 seconds from Rachel Galler (Blaydon CC), while Cestria CC’s Sarah Wilkinson was just 0.1 seconds further back in third.