Haytor set to host Hill Climb Championships

CYCLING

Haytor, the scene of several spectacular Tour of Britain stage finishes, will host next year’s UK National Hill Climb Championships.

The news is another feather in the cap of the local Mid-Devon Cycling Club, which will organise the event on October 27, 2019.

It will mark 40 years since the championships were last held on the three-mile climb from just below the Edgmoor Hotel to the Rocks, although the shorter but steeper Widecombe Hill did stage the event in 1990 when pro star Chris Boardman won the men’s title.

Mid-Devon chairman Andrew Perkins described the decision as ‘a great honour for the club and for Devon’ and Haytor ‘as a superb setting for the championships’.

Hill climbing, a specialist branch of bike racing, has grown in popularity in recent years, and the 2018 national champs near Sheffield last weekend attracted a field of nearly 300 riders.

Thousands more friends and supporters traditionally turn the event into a noisy festival, and next year’s edition will follow the Mid-Devon club’s midsummer Dartmoor Classic ‘sportive’ in giving the local economy a welcome boost.

In 1979, when Manchester’s Jeff Williams won, he set a course record of 12mins 44secs which stood until it was finally broken twice this year.

Young Hampshire pro Paul Double (Zappi’s Racing) clocked 12.36 to win the opening stage time-trial of the Totnes-Vire Two-Day race.

That was before Welsh hill climb specialist Ed Laverack (JLT Condor) lowered it again to 12.24 in the Mid-Devon club championships earlier this month.