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Sun shines on a competitive 2011 Brompton World Champs

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The Brompton World Championship passed off successfully this last Sunday (August 21) with 673 of the 750 registrants making it to the start line.

This was the fourth year the race has been held at Blenheim Palace and this year formed part of the Breast Cancer Care Bike Blenheim Festival. No doubt helped by glorious sunshine and very warm temperatures throughout the whole day, nearly 8,000 attended Bike Blenheim as a whole.

The Brompton World Championship was held over a circuit of 2 laps on a 6.5km course at Blenheim. The course profile included one steady climb of over 300 t0 400 metres, which is no mean feat to do on a folding bike.

Winners

The overall 2011 Brompton World Champion and men’s winner Michael Hutchinson set the fastest time on the course since the event moved to Blenheim with a time of 21:15. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised as Michael is the British National Champion for Time Trialling at 25, 50 and 100 miles. He had already won the Men’s Time Trial event at Blenheim in the morning as well. Rachael Elliott succeeded in securing the title of fastest female for the second year in a row, with a time of 23:35. Impressively she improved on her previous best time by nearly two minutes.

Dressing up

One highlight of the Brompton World Championship is that people do make an effort to dress up for the event. The rules of the event state that a blazer or suit jacket, collared shirt and neck tie must be worn but as every year passes entrants do become more imaginative on their attire. This includes fancy dress and spotted among the entrants was a Pirate (looking remarkably like Johnny Depp from the Pirates of the Caribbean), a Big Ben, Rupert the Bear and the Jim Carrey character with the green face from the film Mask. You can see some pictures of these characters, plus the race itself, on our Facebook page.

Prizes for the best-dressed were awarded to Fokko Bakker, of The Netherlands, and Rachael Jackson, of the United Kingdom for their respective outfits that symbolized The Netherlands and Ireland respectively.

Team GGB

Our web editor Rajiv (see picture below) was in attendance, not only representing Going Going Bike in our guise as the Official Market for Used Bromptons, but also supporting his sister and brother-in-law, both of whom took part in the race.

His poor sister suffered a bit of a tumble on a descent and finished with a few cuts and grazes, showing just how tough and technical the course was. Rajiv hopes to ride the 2012 event if he can find a spare Brompton by then.

Also in attendance at the Bike Blenheim Festival was our webstore partner Water off a Duck’s Back. Water off a Duck’s Back had a stall at the event village (see picture below) and the firm’s founder Antonia Maybury reported steady sales and enquiries through the day for her Macintosh coats.

Quintessentially British

There is some great footage of the 2011 race itself from the official video of this year’s race below.

See also

The official online second-hand Brompton market

All set for Brompton World Champs

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