2026 Sam Robinson Memorial Trophy: preview and startlist
The Sam Robinson Memorial Trophy reaches its 50th edition on Saturday with the Alba Series to settle. Ahron Dick leads by eight points from a rider who isn't entered, but 1,424 metres of climbing and an uphill finish rarely reward arithmetic.
Fifty editions survive because people keep making them happen. On Saturday, Glasgow Nightingale CC will send the Sam Robinson Memorial Trophy onto the roads around Balfron once more, despite anticipating a four-figure loss, to decide the Alba Series over one of Scotland’s hardest National B courses. Ahron Dick starts with control of the standings. The terrain is rather less accommodating.
The Sam Robinson Memorial Trophy has been run every year since 1975 apart from the two Covid summers, meaning Saturday will be its 50th edition. It is promoted by Glasgow Nightingale CC, founded in 1925, and organised this year by Martin Knox from a race HQ at Balfron High School. Maurice Laing, who won the first edition riding for Perth United CC, will be there for the presentation.
The roll of honour reads as a compressed history of Scottish road racing. Willie Gibb won it three times in the 1980s, Evan Oliphant three more between 2004 and 2010. Jason McIntyre took it in 2006, James McCallum in 2009, Ben Greenwood for Rapha Condor Sharp in 2011, John Archibald in 2015. Matti Dobbins won in 2022, when the race doubled as the Scottish championships. Alexander Ball took it in 2024, and Philip Campbell—26th here the year before, riding for Johnstone Wheelers—won in 2025.
For 2026 it carries rather more than its own history, with the race acting as the finale of the Alba Road Series, Scotland’s season-long national road racing competition. This is where it is settled.
Glasgow Nightingale set the finances out themselves. Under the heading of prize fund and catering, the rider pack issued to competitors for Saturday explains that lower entries and rising costs on open road events have forced cuts to both the refreshments and the prize list, before putting the position plainly: with an entry list of 51, “the club is looking at a deficit of over £1K”. The fact that the race is still running says a lot about the dedication of the club and those involved in organising.
Route
The 104-kilometre course carries 1,424 metres of climbing. Riders roll out from Balfron High School at 09:30 and cover 5.8 neutralised kilometres to the holding area on the A81 at Ballat Toll, with racing from roughly 09:45.
The road heads north towards Aberfoyle and turns right onto Duke’s Pass at 11.4 kilometres: 3.9 kilometres at an average of 5.6%, 219 metres of ascent, a third-category climb topping out at 241 metres. It is the highest point of the day and its longest sustained effort, and it arrives before a quarter of the race has been ridden. What follows is the first genuine hazard—a descent of up to 7% over 4.4 kilometres with technical cornering, on roads the Trossachs shares with July tourist traffic. From the bottom the race runs east towards Callander via Brig o’ Turk, picks up the Invertrossachs Road at 31.2 kilometres, and crosses a narrow humpback bridge 300 metres later where oncoming traffic arrives unseen.
The Braes of Greenock circuit begins at 36.2 kilometres and is ridden twice, with a third ascent of the Braes climb itself on the way home. The King of the Mountains competition begins back on Duke’s Pass, with further points to the first three riders over the Braes on its first passage at 38.7 kilometres and its second at 56.8. The third ascent, at 75.1 kilometres, carries nothing—which leaves it as the one major selection point raced purely for the result.
The middle third of the day is where the climbing accumulates. Each lap of the circuit carries two rises: the Braes itself, which lifts to around 175 metres from a valley floor nearer 30, and a second climb to roughly 140 metres on the B822 running north from Thornhill. Five significant rises in all between 38 and 76 kilometres. None is remotely the length of Duke’s Pass. Repetition does the work instead.
From there it is a long run home: right onto the A81 at 78.7 kilometres, west to Aberfoyle, left at the Rob Roy Roundabout, then south past the start area and on through Killearn Bridge. Riders turn left at the Blane Smiddy roundabout onto Station Road at 102.7 kilometres and finish roughly 900 metres later, uphill, at the 30mph Killearn village sign. A yellow flag on the left marks 200 metres to go. The profile puts that final rise at something close to 50 metres of climbing inside a kilometre, from the lowest ground the race has touched in 20 kilometres. Short, then. Not a finish for a pure sprinter.
What’s at stake
The Alba Series was scheduled for five rounds in 2026 and has run three. Gifford in March, the Hugh Dornan Memorial in May, and the Mennock Pass Stage Race in June all went ahead. The Suie Struggle, due at Ythan CC on 6 June, was cancelled. Saturday makes four, and Scottish Cycling’s published standings go into it reading:
Pos
Rider
Club/team
Points
1
Ahron Dick
Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT
58
2
Matti Dobbins
Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT
50
3
Kieran Savage
Chain Tight 930 Units
49
4
Logan Maclean
Private Member
45
5
Ben Millar
Chain Tight 930 Units
43
6
Craig Paterson
Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT
42
7
Liam Scott Douglas
Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT
39
8
Adam Hartley
Blackpool Clarion CC
35
9
Finn Mason
Hubo-Scott Cycling Team
31
10
Deetray Jarrett
Vigo–Rías Baixas
30
Chain Tight 930 Units was a composite assembled for the Mennock Pass Stage Race; Scottish Cycling’s standings carry each rider’s most recent registration. Source: Scottish Cycling, Alba Series standings after round three.
Points run 35 for a win, then 30, 25, 23, 21, 19, 17, 15, 13, and 11 through the top ten, sliding to a single point for 20th and nothing beyond.
Thirty-five points are available on Saturday, so any rider on 24 or more can still finish above Dick. Scottish Cycling’s full standings put 13 riders in that bracket, of whom five are entered: Savage, Millar, Paterson, Scott Douglas, and—at the very edge of it—Alan Dean, whose 25 points would need a win at Killearn and next to nothing from Dick. The other eight, Dobbins and Maclean among them, are not on the provisional startlist.
Two of those five race in Dick’s own colours. Paterson and Scott Douglas are Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT team-mates, as is Dobbins, the rider he leads. The outside challenge therefore narrows to Savage, Millar, and remotely Dean, and Dick can make the question academic himself: second place or better on Saturday puts him beyond any rival’s maximum.
Riders to watch
Ahron Dick (Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT) has had the season his standings position suggests and a more disrupted one than it shows. He won at Gifford in March out of a six-rider move, countering the moment Finn Mason’s late attack was chased down. He missed the Hugh Dornan entirely after crashing at the Rutland–Melton CiCLE Classic the week before. At the Mennock who won stage one and went on to finish fourth overall, five seconds off a general classification settled inside its time bonuses.
Dick wins at the Mennock. Image: Corin Halliday
Kieran Savage is third in the standings and the highest-placed challenger entered—third at the Hugh Dornan, sixth at the Mennock, and doing it without the depth of team support enjoyed by the two riders above him. He rides Saturday without a club.
Craig Paterson (Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT) won the Hugh Dornan with a solo counter in the closing kilometres and has not ridden an Alba round since. Liam Scott Douglas (Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT), second that day and rated the better sprinter of the two by his own team, made the front group at the Mennock and finished 24th here in 2024. Also among Edinburg Bike Fitting RT’s nine rider is Sam Chisholm, the 2025 Scottish road race champion, and Finn McHenry, who was second in this race in 2024, and Elliot Bain, who was fourth in that edition.
Of the others, Ben Millar (Nopinz RT) is the most consistent rider in the series: seventh, eighth, and tenth across the three rounds. Two former winners are entered. Philip Campbell (WattShop) defends the title he took last year, and Alastair McNicol (dooleys cycles) won here in 2014 and has been finishing this race for more than a decade.
Hamish MacLaren (Immunodeficiency UK) was fifth in the tough final stage at the. Mennock and will be hoping to go better than the third he got here in 2024. While Cycling Sheffield’s Sam Barbour is an under-23 awaiting a breakthrough result.
Sam Barbour (Cycling Sheffield) at the 2026 National Track Championships. Image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com
David Lines (Wheelbase CabTech Castelli) has the longest association with the race of anyone on the sheet, third in 2010 for Endura Racing and ninth in 2018, and brings under-23 team-mate Robert Smart.
Evan Marsh (BCC Race Team) was ninth at Gifford, and James Jobber won the Hugh Dornan in 2023. Elliot Speedie (Shibden Apex RT) heads a four-rider under-18 contingent alongside Gregor Calvert (West Lothian Clarion CC), Brodie Duncan, and Raphael Jacquemet-Ross (both Spokes Racing Team).
Saturday is also the first outing in team kit for Ace-YNR Performance, a new Scotland-based squad set up by Colin Dyer and Ian McCaul, who are the only two of its 12 riders racing at Killearn. The team is backed by Ace Bike Co in Musselburgh, Your Next Race coaching, The Bike Fitters, and the Lanterne Rouge cafe in Gifford, and its roster spans National A road racing down to regional criteriums and time trials. McCaul finished 17th at the Mennock Pass Stage Race in June, registered then under LCRT.
Timings
The rolls out at 9.30 for 5.8 km of neutralised roads before the racing begins. The finishing will be between 12.00 and 12.30.
Fifty editions survive because people keep making them happen. On Saturday, Glasgow Nightingale CC will send the Sam Robinson Memorial Trophy onto the roads around Balfron once more, despite anticipating a four-figure loss, to decide the Alba Series over one of Scotland’s hardest National B courses. Ahron Dick starts with control of the standings. The terrain is rather less accommodating.
Featured image: Corin Halliday
Use code TBC10 at 4Endurance.co.uk for 10% off your order.
What is it?
The Sam Robinson Memorial Trophy has been run every year since 1975 apart from the two Covid summers, meaning Saturday will be its 50th edition. It is promoted by Glasgow Nightingale CC, founded in 1925, and organised this year by Martin Knox from a race HQ at Balfron High School. Maurice Laing, who won the first edition riding for Perth United CC, will be there for the presentation.
The roll of honour reads as a compressed history of Scottish road racing. Willie Gibb won it three times in the 1980s, Evan Oliphant three more between 2004 and 2010. Jason McIntyre took it in 2006, James McCallum in 2009, Ben Greenwood for Rapha Condor Sharp in 2011, John Archibald in 2015. Matti Dobbins won in 2022, when the race doubled as the Scottish championships. Alexander Ball took it in 2024, and Philip Campbell—26th here the year before, riding for Johnstone Wheelers—won in 2025.
For 2026 it carries rather more than its own history, with the race acting as the finale of the Alba Road Series, Scotland’s season-long national road racing competition. This is where it is settled.
Glasgow Nightingale set the finances out themselves. Under the heading of prize fund and catering, the rider pack issued to competitors for Saturday explains that lower entries and rising costs on open road events have forced cuts to both the refreshments and the prize list, before putting the position plainly: with an entry list of 51, “the club is looking at a deficit of over £1K”. The fact that the race is still running says a lot about the dedication of the club and those involved in organising.
Route
The 104-kilometre course carries 1,424 metres of climbing. Riders roll out from Balfron High School at 09:30 and cover 5.8 neutralised kilometres to the holding area on the A81 at Ballat Toll, with racing from roughly 09:45.
The road heads north towards Aberfoyle and turns right onto Duke’s Pass at 11.4 kilometres: 3.9 kilometres at an average of 5.6%, 219 metres of ascent, a third-category climb topping out at 241 metres. It is the highest point of the day and its longest sustained effort, and it arrives before a quarter of the race has been ridden. What follows is the first genuine hazard—a descent of up to 7% over 4.4 kilometres with technical cornering, on roads the Trossachs shares with July tourist traffic. From the bottom the race runs east towards Callander via Brig o’ Turk, picks up the Invertrossachs Road at 31.2 kilometres, and crosses a narrow humpback bridge 300 metres later where oncoming traffic arrives unseen.
The Braes of Greenock circuit begins at 36.2 kilometres and is ridden twice, with a third ascent of the Braes climb itself on the way home. The King of the Mountains competition begins back on Duke’s Pass, with further points to the first three riders over the Braes on its first passage at 38.7 kilometres and its second at 56.8. The third ascent, at 75.1 kilometres, carries nothing—which leaves it as the one major selection point raced purely for the result.
The middle third of the day is where the climbing accumulates. Each lap of the circuit carries two rises: the Braes itself, which lifts to around 175 metres from a valley floor nearer 30, and a second climb to roughly 140 metres on the B822 running north from Thornhill. Five significant rises in all between 38 and 76 kilometres. None is remotely the length of Duke’s Pass. Repetition does the work instead.
From there it is a long run home: right onto the A81 at 78.7 kilometres, west to Aberfoyle, left at the Rob Roy Roundabout, then south past the start area and on through Killearn Bridge. Riders turn left at the Blane Smiddy roundabout onto Station Road at 102.7 kilometres and finish roughly 900 metres later, uphill, at the 30mph Killearn village sign. A yellow flag on the left marks 200 metres to go. The profile puts that final rise at something close to 50 metres of climbing inside a kilometre, from the lowest ground the race has touched in 20 kilometres. Short, then. Not a finish for a pure sprinter.
What’s at stake
The Alba Series was scheduled for five rounds in 2026 and has run three. Gifford in March, the Hugh Dornan Memorial in May, and the Mennock Pass Stage Race in June all went ahead. The Suie Struggle, due at Ythan CC on 6 June, was cancelled. Saturday makes four, and Scottish Cycling’s published standings go into it reading:
Points run 35 for a win, then 30, 25, 23, 21, 19, 17, 15, 13, and 11 through the top ten, sliding to a single point for 20th and nothing beyond.
Thirty-five points are available on Saturday, so any rider on 24 or more can still finish above Dick. Scottish Cycling’s full standings put 13 riders in that bracket, of whom five are entered: Savage, Millar, Paterson, Scott Douglas, and—at the very edge of it—Alan Dean, whose 25 points would need a win at Killearn and next to nothing from Dick. The other eight, Dobbins and Maclean among them, are not on the provisional startlist.
Two of those five race in Dick’s own colours. Paterson and Scott Douglas are Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT team-mates, as is Dobbins, the rider he leads. The outside challenge therefore narrows to Savage, Millar, and remotely Dean, and Dick can make the question academic himself: second place or better on Saturday puts him beyond any rival’s maximum.
Riders to watch
Ahron Dick (Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT) has had the season his standings position suggests and a more disrupted one than it shows. He won at Gifford in March out of a six-rider move, countering the moment Finn Mason’s late attack was chased down. He missed the Hugh Dornan entirely after crashing at the Rutland–Melton CiCLE Classic the week before. At the Mennock who won stage one and went on to finish fourth overall, five seconds off a general classification settled inside its time bonuses.
Kieran Savage is third in the standings and the highest-placed challenger entered—third at the Hugh Dornan, sixth at the Mennock, and doing it without the depth of team support enjoyed by the two riders above him. He rides Saturday without a club.
Craig Paterson (Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT) won the Hugh Dornan with a solo counter in the closing kilometres and has not ridden an Alba round since. Liam Scott Douglas (Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT), second that day and rated the better sprinter of the two by his own team, made the front group at the Mennock and finished 24th here in 2024. Also among Edinburg Bike Fitting RT’s nine rider is Sam Chisholm, the 2025 Scottish road race champion, and Finn McHenry, who was second in this race in 2024, and Elliot Bain, who was fourth in that edition.
Of the others, Ben Millar (Nopinz RT) is the most consistent rider in the series: seventh, eighth, and tenth across the three rounds. Two former winners are entered. Philip Campbell (WattShop) defends the title he took last year, and Alastair McNicol (dooleys cycles) won here in 2014 and has been finishing this race for more than a decade.
Hamish MacLaren (Immunodeficiency UK) was fifth in the tough final stage at the. Mennock and will be hoping to go better than the third he got here in 2024. While Cycling Sheffield’s Sam Barbour is an under-23 awaiting a breakthrough result.
David Lines (Wheelbase CabTech Castelli) has the longest association with the race of anyone on the sheet, third in 2010 for Endura Racing and ninth in 2018, and brings under-23 team-mate Robert Smart.
Evan Marsh (BCC Race Team) was ninth at Gifford, and James Jobber won the Hugh Dornan in 2023. Elliot Speedie (Shibden Apex RT) heads a four-rider under-18 contingent alongside Gregor Calvert (West Lothian Clarion CC), Brodie Duncan, and Raphael Jacquemet-Ross (both Spokes Racing Team).
Saturday is also the first outing in team kit for Ace-YNR Performance, a new Scotland-based squad set up by Colin Dyer and Ian McCaul, who are the only two of its 12 riders racing at Killearn. The team is backed by Ace Bike Co in Musselburgh, Your Next Race coaching, The Bike Fitters, and the Lanterne Rouge cafe in Gifford, and its roster spans National A road racing down to regional criteriums and time trials. McCaul finished 17th at the Mennock Pass Stage Race in June, registered then under LCRT.
Timings
The rolls out at 9.30 for 5.8 km of neutralised roads before the racing begins. The finishing will be between 12.00 and 12.30.
Provisional startlist
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