There’s so much racing action going on at the club at the moment, it’s hard to keep track of what’s been going on. One such omission over the weekend was Luke Norris’s exploits at another cyclocross event on Sunday.
Organised by Solihull Cycling Club, Luke raced in round 5 of the West Midlands Cyclocross League series, the venue being the Heart of England Conference Centre grounds.
Amazing conditions greeted all the riders as even after some overnight rain the course was in fact quite dry, fast and flowing, but with some slippery sections in the woods. The race was for a duration of 50 minutes, which equated to 8 laps of the course.
Luke is still what is known as a non-gridded rider, so has to start at the back of what was a large 80 rider field.
He got away to a frantic start, suffering two crashes within the first half a lap, with fallen riders in front of him unavoidable. Again, without a gridded position he was in for a tough start with such a large field of riders on track at the same time.
However, a great effort meant Luke quickly got through the pack and ended lap 1 inside the top 20 and was making quick progress. At half way he’d climbed up to 10th and was closing in on the bunch ahead. With 2 laps to go he was up to 9th and still closing, but unfortunately ran out of time. So, 9th place overall it was, a great result, which also put him 6th in his class.
Luke and father Matt, both started cyclocross at the same time at the end of 2019 and did a few events, but then COVID wiped out the 2020 season. Matt says, “As you can imagine, with his motocross background, Luke took to it like a duck to water and he’s had some really good results” It’s a discipline both of them really enjoy and they’ve put in a lot of time and resource into it.
Watch this space – their progress can only get better.