Norwich Flyers BMX Club

Cruiser racing day at the World Championships
Norwich’s Alan and Abi Hill are both competing.Both riders manage to make their finals (all of our riders have made their finals at these championships!).
Information is scarce at the moment but we do know that Alan came 6th in the 35-39 class and Abi grabbed world#5 in the 35-39 female class. Congrats to the “Hilly’s”. More info and hopefully videos to come…

Elite men cruiser
Jonathan Suraz (Venezuela) takes elite cruiser gold and Great Britain’s own kelvin Batey takes a well deserved 3rd place.

Media
Elite Men Cruiser World Final

Day 1
No Norwich riders competing today but some of our British youngsters are in there fighting for Glory.
Good news of the day, Sheffield’s Chloe Taylor takes 6th place in the 9 years olds girl’s final. Disappointment of the day, Chloe’s older sister and former World #1 fails to make the 14 years old Girl’s final.

Day 2
Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. Ben Forwood goes in the 30+ males category and Alan Hill’s in the 35+ masters.
Ok first great piece of news, both make their respective finals which is a massive achievement in such a prestigious competition.

30+ Final.
Ben draws lane 6 and gets a good start managing to avoid a first straight crash that takes down half the field! From then on its a battle for first between Ben and the USA’s Tommy Opincar.Tommy has the advantage and despite a last straight charge from Ben, manages to hang on for 1st. Giving Ben the World #2 plate for the year (+GB’s Andy Shaw takes W#3) Awesome performance Mr Forwood !

35+ Master’s Final.
Wow what a line up for this one! Current world#1 Jason Carnes plus such Bmx Legends as Percy Owens and John Whipperman (all three from the USA) are among Alan’s competition. gate goes down and Alan doesn’t get the best of starts but as usual starts making moves to cut through the pack. By end of Race Whipperman takes the title with Alan coming home in 4th . A great achievement against truly the worlds best riders in this class.

Media
Ben’s 30+World Final Video
Alan’s 35+ masters World Final Video

Day 2
The lone Norwich rider competing today is our Elite Female Joey Gough. Joey unfortunately crashes in her first Moto and takes no further part in the day’s racing. Tough luck Joey

Day 3
Ok, day three of the Euro’s and we have high hopes for our two European Champion’s Ben Forward and Alan Hill, both competing in the 30+ class.
Hilly’s weekend ends in more disappointment with a very uncharacteristic crash in the final.
Ben fairs better though smoothing his way through his qualifying heats and makes the 30+ A Final in style.
In the final Ben finishes third in a very classy field.
In the Elite women Joey Gough improves on her previous days results by making as far as the semi final but goes no further.
So that’s the Euros over for another year. Not as successful for the Flyers as last year but France has to be the hardest place to win titles outside of the U.S.A.

Just a few days break and our intrepid travellers will be off to Canada for the World championships. Can Ben improve on his fourth place last year? Will a disappointing Euro’s by his standards spur “Hilly” on to world #1?
Stay tuned to Norwichbmx blog to find out.

Thanks go out to our reporter in France, Monsieur Steve Williams who constantly phoned live reports through to the Norwich blog media offices as the action unfolded. Merci Steve.

Media
Ben’s Final

Day 1
Today was the opening day of the European Championships and featured cruiser racing. Our only rider competing today was Alan Hill in the 30-39 class. With the race being held in France, which is probably the biggest and strongest BMX nation in Europe, competiton was extremly fierce. Commendably Alan was the only Brit to make it through to a Final, where he took 5th place over all.

Media
Alan’s cruiser final
ALL cruiser finals
Euro Champs picture Gallery

It’s that crazy time of year again with the European Championships happening this weekend (July 13th -15th) in Foire De Roman’s, France and then the Worlds in Victoria, Canada just two weeks later (July26th -29th). The Flyers will have riders challenging for top honours at both of these events.

Riding for Norwich Flyers at the Europeans & the Worlds will be.
Alan Hill:Current 30-39 and 35+ European Champion and 35+ World #2
Ben Forward: current 25-30 European Champion and 25-30 World #4
Abi Hill: U.K. Ladies 25+ #2
Joey Gough: Elite Women

As you can see from the above statistics Alan and Ben had some stunning results last year. Making Norwich probably the most successful European club at last years Championships!

The blog will be updated daily with the progress of our riders during both the Euros and Worlds weekends.

Links to videos of our riders will be up at the end of each day’s competition so stay tuned.
And good luck to all our riders competing at the sport’s very highest levels and spreading the name of Norwich Flyers around the globe.

Official European Championships website
Official World Championships website

The Perryman’s in Holland & Marshals in clogs!
It was a sad day last year when one of the Flyers keenest BMXing families decided to move to Assen in the North of Holland. As always “Big Al” had BMX in the back of his mind and made sure that their new abode wasn’t too far from a good track!

Al sent me a report on his and his not so little any more son Jack’s exploits at their first Dutch regional race…

Racing in the NL (Regional level. still not sure how to get a KNUW license, web site in Dutch only)
We get some funny looks in the pens or on the gate, English?
Brakes levers on the wrong side!
Magnetic start gate (That can hold a full gate of fat b***rd cruisers)!
6 lanes start hills & gates?
Marshals wearing clogs (really, not joking)
Racing in the rain but not if its thunder and lightning!
Very formal training, no free time to just ride the track.
Most tracks are fenced and closed if not racing or training.
Race details, times, start gates, moto sheets, commentators, all in Dutch

Take a look at the Perryman’s photoalbum here. Seems living abroad is certanly working out nicely!

Hope you can all make it back to one of our races in the new year.

The Cheethams are back to their winning ways…
Yet another wet national weekend. With numbers down due to the weather and a quagmire of a car park, Coppull Club refused to be defeated by the wet conditions and put on a great event.

16-29 Cruiser
Jake Cheetham takes his first national win of the year! Alansbmx.com’s Alex Deakin pushed Jake hard at the line but Jake just edged it to start a successful weekend for the Cheetham clan.

Ladies 25+
Abi Hill take another class win. National Number one end of season title is well with her grasp now. Roll on Wales!

30-39 Cruiser
Alan Hilll has a first straight battle with Redline team mate Ian Sharpe. Come the big step up jump “Hilly” hits the turbo and flies over it waving goodbye to all opposition. Chalking up his third win from 3 starts in this class.

30+ Masters
Jay Mills and Steve Williams both make the main event. Steve made a great start but got pushed out wide causing him to baulk Jay’s attempt at cutting through the field. Better luck next time guys.

Junior Men
Josh Cheetham pulled of probably his biggest win of some years. Showing a never say die attitude Josh clung to the rear wheel of Green Machine/Cornwall BMX’s Luke Tamblyn and waited for his chance. In the very last straight Josh hit the famous Cheetham “smooth button” and powered his way past to 1st place by a tyre width. Awesome performance Josh!

Elite Men
Alan Hill once again made the A final in a rather depleted Elite Class, coming away with an excellent 5th place which sees him lying in 8th place in the series over all. Pretty fly for an old guy! (Sorry Al!)