2026 Eastern Road Championship: preview and startlist
The Eastern Road Championship returns to the lanes around Barking on Sunday 31 May, where a compact field, a technical circuit and 12 ascents of Willisham Hill should produce a race with little room for concealment.
The Eastern Road Championship heads to the lanes around Barking on Sunday 31 May, where a compact field, a technical circuit and 12 ascents of Willisham Hill should produce a race with little room for concealment. Rowan Baker brings the clearest pedigree, but Frank Longstaff, Callum Laborde and the stronger team blocs will all sense an opportunity to turn a lean start list into an animated afternoon.
The Eastern Road Championship is the Eastern region’s senior open road-race title race: a National B event, promoted this year by Stowmarket & District CC and based at Barking Village Hall, near Ipswich.
The championship has a long place in the region’s calendar, though it has shifted between courses and host events over the years. Last season it was incorporated into the Derek Lusher Memorial, where Monte Guerrini won overall ahead of Callum Laborde and Rowan Baker. This year, Laborde and Baker return to the conversation on a different course, with Willisham Hill providing the repeated test.
With 28 riders on the start list, the race should be easy enough to read but difficult to control: several strong individuals, a few teams with numbers, and little room for passengers once the circuit begins to bite.
Route
The race starts at 13:00 and takes in 12 laps of the AM1 circuit around Barking, Ringshall, Great Bricett, Ofton and Willisham, for a total of 124 kilometres. It’s a compact, rolling circuit rather than a course defined by any single major climb, but its difficulty should come from repetition, exposure, positioning and the repeated drag towards Willisham Hill.
From Barking, the route heads through Ringshall and Great Bricett before taking a sharp left onto the narrower road towards Ofton. The race manual specifically warns riders about the 120-degree turn, the S-bends that follow, and narrow sections where oncoming traffic may be present. From Ofton, the course turns left again at the top of a small rise before continuing up Willisham Hill to complete the lap.
It is not a course that should automatically explode the race, but with a small field and few teams able to impose control, it gives attacking riders several useful pressure points: the turn into Ofton, the narrow road that follows, and the repeated uphill run towards the finish.
Riders to watch
Rowan Baker is the obvious point of reference. The JAKROO Handsling Racing rider arrives with the clearest recent road-race pedigree in the field, having won the opening stage of the 2026 Rás Tailteann from a four-rider breakaway in Kilmallock, where he was guesting for the Isle of Man team. Add that to his domestic record, including victory at the Kennel Hill Classic earlier this season, and Baker looks like the rider most others will have to measure themselves against.
Rowan Baker. Image: Paceline Media
Frank Longstaff gives DAS Richardsons a serious card to play, though probably in a different way. He is more naturally a fast finisher than an attritional road racer, but his second place at the Jock Wadley Memorial showed he can thrive when the race is stretched on exposed Essex roads and decided from a reduced front end. If the Eastern Championship comes back together in a small group, Longstaff’s finishing speed becomes a major problem for everyone else.
Callum Laborde should also be prominent. Now with Ornata Factory Racing, he was second in last year’s Derek Lusher Memorial when it incorporated the Eastern title, and his 2026 road-race form includes 17th at the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix. He is a proven presence in this kind of race: durable, tactically aware, and capable of making the final selection rather than simply waiting for one.
Luca Nicholson deserves a paragraph of his own. The 18-year-old Velo Club Baracchi rider has been one of the more interesting breakout names of the early season, backing up second at the Wally Gimber with a solo victory at the PB Performance Espoirs Road Race a week later, where he beat an 80-strong field in difficult conditions and took the early lead in the U23 Open National Road Series. On a small field and a circuit where timing may matter as much as numbers, Nicholson looks like a genuine threat rather than an outside pick.
Luca Nicholson. Image: Mark James
Schils–Doltcini Racing Team have one of the stronger collective hands, with Tsz Shun Cheung, Fabian Horrocks, Cameron Hurst and Thomas Wade all listed. LCRT also have numbers through James Hughes, Christian Kirkwood, Toby Langstone and Toby Seely. In a race of only 28 starters, those blocs could matter: not necessarily to control the race from the front, but to follow moves, force decisions, and make the favourites spend energy earlier than they would like.
The Eastern Road Championship heads to the lanes around Barking on Sunday 31 May, where a compact field, a technical circuit and 12 ascents of Willisham Hill should produce a race with little room for concealment. Rowan Baker brings the clearest pedigree, but Frank Longstaff, Callum Laborde and the stronger team blocs will all sense an opportunity to turn a lean start list into an animated afternoon.
Featured image: Mark James
Use code TBC10 at 4Endurance.co.uk for 10% off your order.
What is it?
The Eastern Road Championship is the Eastern region’s senior open road-race title race: a National B event, promoted this year by Stowmarket & District CC and based at Barking Village Hall, near Ipswich.
The championship has a long place in the region’s calendar, though it has shifted between courses and host events over the years. Last season it was incorporated into the Derek Lusher Memorial, where Monte Guerrini won overall ahead of Callum Laborde and Rowan Baker. This year, Laborde and Baker return to the conversation on a different course, with Willisham Hill providing the repeated test.
With 28 riders on the start list, the race should be easy enough to read but difficult to control: several strong individuals, a few teams with numbers, and little room for passengers once the circuit begins to bite.
Route
The race starts at 13:00 and takes in 12 laps of the AM1 circuit around Barking, Ringshall, Great Bricett, Ofton and Willisham, for a total of 124 kilometres. It’s a compact, rolling circuit rather than a course defined by any single major climb, but its difficulty should come from repetition, exposure, positioning and the repeated drag towards Willisham Hill.
From Barking, the route heads through Ringshall and Great Bricett before taking a sharp left onto the narrower road towards Ofton. The race manual specifically warns riders about the 120-degree turn, the S-bends that follow, and narrow sections where oncoming traffic may be present. From Ofton, the course turns left again at the top of a small rise before continuing up Willisham Hill to complete the lap.
It is not a course that should automatically explode the race, but with a small field and few teams able to impose control, it gives attacking riders several useful pressure points: the turn into Ofton, the narrow road that follows, and the repeated uphill run towards the finish.
Riders to watch
Rowan Baker is the obvious point of reference. The JAKROO Handsling Racing rider arrives with the clearest recent road-race pedigree in the field, having won the opening stage of the 2026 Rás Tailteann from a four-rider breakaway in Kilmallock, where he was guesting for the Isle of Man team. Add that to his domestic record, including victory at the Kennel Hill Classic earlier this season, and Baker looks like the rider most others will have to measure themselves against.
Frank Longstaff gives DAS Richardsons a serious card to play, though probably in a different way. He is more naturally a fast finisher than an attritional road racer, but his second place at the Jock Wadley Memorial showed he can thrive when the race is stretched on exposed Essex roads and decided from a reduced front end. If the Eastern Championship comes back together in a small group, Longstaff’s finishing speed becomes a major problem for everyone else.
Callum Laborde should also be prominent. Now with Ornata Factory Racing, he was second in last year’s Derek Lusher Memorial when it incorporated the Eastern title, and his 2026 road-race form includes 17th at the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix. He is a proven presence in this kind of race: durable, tactically aware, and capable of making the final selection rather than simply waiting for one.
Luca Nicholson deserves a paragraph of his own. The 18-year-old Velo Club Baracchi rider has been one of the more interesting breakout names of the early season, backing up second at the Wally Gimber with a solo victory at the PB Performance Espoirs Road Race a week later, where he beat an 80-strong field in difficult conditions and took the early lead in the U23 Open National Road Series. On a small field and a circuit where timing may matter as much as numbers, Nicholson looks like a genuine threat rather than an outside pick.
Schils–Doltcini Racing Team have one of the stronger collective hands, with Tsz Shun Cheung, Fabian Horrocks, Cameron Hurst and Thomas Wade all listed. LCRT also have numbers through James Hughes, Christian Kirkwood, Toby Langstone and Toby Seely. In a race of only 28 starters, those blocs could matter: not necessarily to control the race from the front, but to follow moves, force decisions, and make the favourites spend energy earlier than they would like.
Provisional startlist
Entries are available on the line.
Share this:
Discover more from The British Continental
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.