2025 Guildford Town Centre Races: report and results
Robyn Clay led a near-clean DAS-Hutchinson sweep in the Greyfriars Vineyard Women’s GP, before 17-year-old Milo Wills (TEKKERZ) outsprinted Jente Michels to win The Cycle Exchange Open GP (9 July)
In the Greyfriars Vineyard Guildford Women’s Grand Prix, Guildford’s cobbles echoed DAS-Hutchinson control: Robyn Clay stormed to victory, her blue squad locking out six of the top seven places.
Later in the evening, South London’s 17-year-old prodigy Milo Wills (TEKKERZ CC) blitzed The Cycle Exchange Guildford Open Grand Prix, out-kicking Belgian powerhouse Jente Michels (Alpecin-Deceuninck Development RT) to stamp yet another exclamation mark on his breakout season.
Featured image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Report
The Greyfriars Vineyard Guildford Women’s Grand Prix
Guildford’s venerable High Street once again became an amphitheatre for crit racing, hosting Round 9 of the Rapha Super-League and Round 3 of the Lloyds National Circuit Series. The course is brutal in its simplicity: a 5-6 % cobbled ramp off the line, a lung-searing drag to the upper-High-Street hairpin, then a helter-skelter descent before the riders are funnelled back onto the stones for the 200-metre uphill sprint to the tape. Every lap is a lactic-acid coin-flip, and every corner a chance to lose the race before you’ve even realised it.
No team arrived with more firepower than DAS-Hutchinson. They swarmed the front from the neutral roll-out, forcing splits on the very first ascent of the High Street. The team’s young Scot, Morven Yeoman took the first dig, stringing the bunch into a line of rag dolls along the cobbled High Street.
Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
A few laps in, the team played its ace. Rapha Super-League leader and pre-race favourite Robyn Clay punched clear, taking Madeline Cooper (Montezuma’s Eventrex RT) with her, the pair trading turns as the sun dipped behind Holy Trinity’s spire. Yeoman bridged decisively two laps later, making it two DAS riders versus one. The trio carved out a 12-second gap, while Clay’s teammates patrolled the front of the ever-diminishing bunch.
Yeoman counterattacked, her rear wheel skipping over the cobbles as she dropped her companions before Clay and Cooper clawed back to her wheel. Behind them, another DAS-Hutchinson rider, Lucy Lee, launched across with an explosive move, giving DAS a numerical stranglehold. Before long, DAS-Hutchinson’s Noémie Thomson was also in the mix, leaving Cooper well and truly outnumbered. One bell to go – five blue jerseys and a lone Cooper, the break fully re-formed and the crowd in full throat.
Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Onto the cobbled High Street for the final time, Clay kicked hard, inexorably opening daylight. Cooper fought gamely, Lee hovered on her shoulder in third, but the result was beyond doubt.
Robyn Clay sat up to punch the air, taking her second National Circuit Series win of the season. Cooper crossed two lengths back for a richly-earned silver, while Lee free-wheeled in for third to complete the DAS one-three. Behind them, Yeoman, Thomson and fellow DAS-Hutchinson riders Tiffany Keep and Sophie Lewis flooded the top seven, with only Cooper breaking the blue blockade: DAS-Hutchinson occupied six of the first seven places – a display of dominance seldom seen even on Britain’s crit scene.
Clay’s victory extends her cushion atop the Rapha Super-League and rockets her back into the National Circuit Series lead. DAS-Hutchinson’s clean sweep tightens their grip on the Series team classification and underlines the depth that has made them the reference squad of the domestic scene in 2025.
Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Cooper’s runner-up ride cements her growing reputation as the peloton’s most consistent all-rounder, while Lee’s podium – her second in as many weeks – hints at an equally rich summer ahead.
The Super-League and National Circuit Series now move to the Sheffield Grand Prix next Wednesday, where, if tonight is anything to go by, it will be up to the rest of the peloton to find an antidote to DAS-Hutchinson’s blue tide.
The Cycle Exchange Guildford Open Grand Prix
The hour-long dart round Guildford’s twists never settled. Local favourite Tom Portsmouth (Wagner Bazin WB) recovered from a position towards the back of the grid to animate the opening exchanges, stringing the 66-strong field into a single file that left legs burning.
Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Another instigator was Tom Armstrong of Wheelbase CabTech Castelli, who kept the throttle open and seldom drifted outside the first ten wheels. It was—above all—a race of attrition: no escapees survived for long, and the bunch thinned steadily under the unrelenting tempo. Mid-race, the pattern almost cracked when Danylo Riwnyj (Foran CT) punched clear, but the Ukrainian’s gambit was quickly reeled in.
With three laps left only ten riders remained in contention: Portsmouth, Armstrong and Riwnyj, as well as Milo Wills and Oscar Amey (both TEKKERZ CC), Jente Michels (Alpecin-Deceuninck Development), Tom Couzens (Private Member), Harry Macfarlane (Ride Revolution Coaching), Adam Howell (Muc-Off-SRCT- Storck) and Cai Davies (DAS-Richardsons).
Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
On the final rise up the cobbled High Street, Ilkley Grand Prix winner Wills again showed a composure beyond his 17 years, floating over the granite to out-kick Belgian cyclo-cross specialist Michels. Team-mate Amey edged a fading Armstrong for the last podium slot, racing green TEKKERZ jerseys now bracketing the rostrum.
For Wills it is another emphatic marker in a breakout season already highlighted by last week’s Ilkley triumph. Armstrong’s fourth place, however, elbows him into the lead of the National Circuit Series – seven points clear of Michels – while Wheelbase CabTech Castelli still top the team standings, though TEKKERZ have closed to within six.
Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Matt Bostock (TEKKERZ), absent this round, retains Rapha Super-League leadership, but Adam Howell’s seventh on the night chipped away at the deficit, moving him up to second place, 38 points back.
Results
The Greyfriars Vineyard Guildford Women’s Grand Prix
In the Greyfriars Vineyard Guildford Women’s Grand Prix, Guildford’s cobbles echoed DAS-Hutchinson control: Robyn Clay stormed to victory, her blue squad locking out six of the top seven places.
Later in the evening, South London’s 17-year-old prodigy Milo Wills (TEKKERZ CC) blitzed The Cycle Exchange Guildford Open Grand Prix, out-kicking Belgian powerhouse Jente Michels (Alpecin-Deceuninck Development RT) to stamp yet another exclamation mark on his breakout season.
Featured image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Report
The Greyfriars Vineyard Guildford Women’s Grand Prix
Guildford’s venerable High Street once again became an amphitheatre for crit racing, hosting Round 9 of the Rapha Super-League and Round 3 of the Lloyds National Circuit Series. The course is brutal in its simplicity: a 5-6 % cobbled ramp off the line, a lung-searing drag to the upper-High-Street hairpin, then a helter-skelter descent before the riders are funnelled back onto the stones for the 200-metre uphill sprint to the tape. Every lap is a lactic-acid coin-flip, and every corner a chance to lose the race before you’ve even realised it.
No team arrived with more firepower than DAS-Hutchinson. They swarmed the front from the neutral roll-out, forcing splits on the very first ascent of the High Street. The team’s young Scot, Morven Yeoman took the first dig, stringing the bunch into a line of rag dolls along the cobbled High Street.
A few laps in, the team played its ace. Rapha Super-League leader and pre-race favourite Robyn Clay punched clear, taking Madeline Cooper (Montezuma’s Eventrex RT) with her, the pair trading turns as the sun dipped behind Holy Trinity’s spire. Yeoman bridged decisively two laps later, making it two DAS riders versus one. The trio carved out a 12-second gap, while Clay’s teammates patrolled the front of the ever-diminishing bunch.
Yeoman counterattacked, her rear wheel skipping over the cobbles as she dropped her companions before Clay and Cooper clawed back to her wheel. Behind them, another DAS-Hutchinson rider, Lucy Lee, launched across with an explosive move, giving DAS a numerical stranglehold. Before long, DAS-Hutchinson’s Noémie Thomson was also in the mix, leaving Cooper well and truly outnumbered. One bell to go – five blue jerseys and a lone Cooper, the break fully re-formed and the crowd in full throat.
Onto the cobbled High Street for the final time, Clay kicked hard, inexorably opening daylight. Cooper fought gamely, Lee hovered on her shoulder in third, but the result was beyond doubt.
Robyn Clay sat up to punch the air, taking her second National Circuit Series win of the season. Cooper crossed two lengths back for a richly-earned silver, while Lee free-wheeled in for third to complete the DAS one-three. Behind them, Yeoman, Thomson and fellow DAS-Hutchinson riders Tiffany Keep and Sophie Lewis flooded the top seven, with only Cooper breaking the blue blockade: DAS-Hutchinson occupied six of the first seven places – a display of dominance seldom seen even on Britain’s crit scene.
Clay’s victory extends her cushion atop the Rapha Super-League and rockets her back into the National Circuit Series lead. DAS-Hutchinson’s clean sweep tightens their grip on the Series team classification and underlines the depth that has made them the reference squad of the domestic scene in 2025.
Cooper’s runner-up ride cements her growing reputation as the peloton’s most consistent all-rounder, while Lee’s podium – her second in as many weeks – hints at an equally rich summer ahead.
The Super-League and National Circuit Series now move to the Sheffield Grand Prix next Wednesday, where, if tonight is anything to go by, it will be up to the rest of the peloton to find an antidote to DAS-Hutchinson’s blue tide.
The Cycle Exchange Guildford Open Grand Prix
The hour-long dart round Guildford’s twists never settled. Local favourite Tom Portsmouth (Wagner Bazin WB) recovered from a position towards the back of the grid to animate the opening exchanges, stringing the 66-strong field into a single file that left legs burning.
Another instigator was Tom Armstrong of Wheelbase CabTech Castelli, who kept the throttle open and seldom drifted outside the first ten wheels. It was—above all—a race of attrition: no escapees survived for long, and the bunch thinned steadily under the unrelenting tempo. Mid-race, the pattern almost cracked when Danylo Riwnyj (Foran CT) punched clear, but the Ukrainian’s gambit was quickly reeled in.
With three laps left only ten riders remained in contention: Portsmouth, Armstrong and Riwnyj, as well as Milo Wills and Oscar Amey (both TEKKERZ CC), Jente Michels (Alpecin-Deceuninck Development), Tom Couzens (Private Member), Harry Macfarlane (Ride Revolution Coaching), Adam Howell (Muc-Off-SRCT- Storck) and Cai Davies (DAS-Richardsons).
On the final rise up the cobbled High Street, Ilkley Grand Prix winner Wills again showed a composure beyond his 17 years, floating over the granite to out-kick Belgian cyclo-cross specialist Michels. Team-mate Amey edged a fading Armstrong for the last podium slot, racing green TEKKERZ jerseys now bracketing the rostrum.
For Wills it is another emphatic marker in a breakout season already highlighted by last week’s Ilkley triumph. Armstrong’s fourth place, however, elbows him into the lead of the National Circuit Series – seven points clear of Michels – while Wheelbase CabTech Castelli still top the team standings, though TEKKERZ have closed to within six.
Matt Bostock (TEKKERZ), absent this round, retains Rapha Super-League leadership, but Adam Howell’s seventh on the night chipped away at the deficit, moving him up to second place, 38 points back.
Results
The Greyfriars Vineyard Guildford Women’s Grand Prix
Full results here.
The Cycle Exchange Guildford Open Grand Prix
Full results here.
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