The Mendip stage race returns for a fifth edition on 15 and 16 August, cut from three stages to two and running head-on into the North Yorkshire Grand Prix. Elliott Colyer, seventh in the national rankings, heads the field.
The Mendip stage race returns for a fifth edition on 15 and 16 August, cut from three stages to two and running head-on into the North Yorkshire Grand Prix. Elliott Colyer, seventh in the The British Continental national rankings, heads the field.
What survives the trimming is the part worth keeping. Sunday finishes at the top of Harptree Hill, which the race climbs four times, and the organisers have kept a prize for the rider who comes second to last—awarded, in their words, to the one who “never gave up and did not want to be last”. A month of strength and conditioning coaching goes to whoever earns it. It is a small thing, and probably says more about the race’s character than the results sheet ever will.
Featured image: Carl Downing
What is it?
The Clive Tiley Memorial is a two-day National B stage race on the Mendip plateau, organised by the Bristol Cycling Development Squad and supported by Fenwick’s Bike Products. It runs as the support event to Round 7 of the Junior Open National Series, and the two races together form the Fenwick’s Tours of Mendip. Both start and finish at Hazel Manor, near Ubley in Bath and North East Somerset.
The race is only in its fifth year but has already been through several shapes. The 2023 edition ran to four stages across three days, including an opening time trial. The 2024 and 2025 editions settled at three stages. This year it is two, with no time trial, a change the organisers attribute to road conditions, which have also reduced the race to a single significant climb.
Oscar Hutchings won that first edition in 2022. Ross Fawcett took the 2023 race for Orwell Velo, Jonny Britton won in 2024 for Moonglu Race Team, and Maxwell Hereward won last year for 360 Cycling, holding off Sam Walsham by 20 seconds after three days. None of the four returns.
The route
Saturday’s opening stage is 10 laps of a 13.2-kilometre circuit on the plateau, 132.1 kilometres of racing after a neutralised run of 3.3 kilometres. The lap joins the B3135 three kilometres in and takes in Plummer’s Lane, which means the climb is ridden 10 times and the stage gathers 1,126 metres. Nothing about it is severe – the elevation never varies by more than 70 metres — but repetition does its own work, and on a circuit this exposed, the wind could shape the race as much as the gradient. Primes fall at the end of the second, fourth, and sixth laps, scored 6-4-3-2-1 towards a separate trophy.
Sunday is where the race is decided, and at 124.8 kilometres it is the shorter day. It opens with a single short lap of Saturday’s circuit before dropping off the plateau onto a longer 29.3-kilometre loop, down through Litton and East Harptree on a twisting descent, out to West Harptree, and then back up.
The way back up is Harptree Hill, and it is the whole point of the stage. It runs 1.1 kilometres at an average of 10.2%, steepening to 15.9% at its worst, and tops out at 233 metres after 113 metres of climbing. Taken once, it is a fourth-category climb and nothing much to fear. Taken four times across the closing 90 kilometres, with the fourth ascent as the finish line, it is comfortably the hardest thing in the race. Primes go to the top of the first three; the fourth settles the general classification. A rider who is not climbing well on Saturday evening has nowhere to hide on Sunday.
Riders to watch
The obvious name is Elliott Colyer, who finished sixth here last August riding for TAAP Kalas and was fourth on the decisive final stage. He has had much the best season of anyone in this field since, sitting seventh in The British Continental national rankings. He also arrives in a jersey he designed the plan for: Aero CLCTV is the rider-led collective he founded for 2026. A summit finish in the county where his team is rooted is about as favourable a set-up as he could ask for.
Colyer. Image: Gary Main
Matthew Gilmour (Nopinz RT) is the only other rider here inside the national top 20, sitting 10th in his first season with the team after Primera–TeamJobs folded. He was second at the Portsdown Classic in February and has been consistently strong throughout the year.
Nopinz RT bring the largest squad in the race, four riders, with Ben Millar, Jack Beveridge, and Callum Orchard alongside Gilmour. Millar was 10th overall here last year and Beveridge 18th, so both know what Sunday costs. Against them, Aero CLCTV field only two.
The most interesting unknown is Travis Harkness, the sole entrant from Spellman–Dublin Port Cycling Team and the only rider here to have started the Rás Tailteann this season. He carries no domestic ranking points because he races almost entirely in Ireland, which makes him impossible to place against the rest of this field and worth watching for exactly that reason.
Beyond that the field thins, though not as sharply as the rankings suggest. Louis Mann (Army Cycling Union) was third at the Inter-Services championships in July and eighth on the opening stage of the Mennock Pass Stage Race in June. Elliot Barratt, riding as a private member, took third at the VC Norwich Road Race last month. League-Fortè Chiropractic are the only other outfit with more than two riders, bringing Joseph Bearman, Ludovic Hirst, and Ben Waghorne; Waghorne was 12th at the Chitterne Road Race in April with Mann 14th and Bearman 15th, which is a fair measure of how tightly packed this end of the field is.
The Mendip stage race returns for a fifth edition on 15 and 16 August, cut from three stages to two and running head-on into the North Yorkshire Grand Prix. Elliott Colyer, seventh in the The British Continental national rankings, heads the field.
What survives the trimming is the part worth keeping. Sunday finishes at the top of Harptree Hill, which the race climbs four times, and the organisers have kept a prize for the rider who comes second to last—awarded, in their words, to the one who “never gave up and did not want to be last”. A month of strength and conditioning coaching goes to whoever earns it. It is a small thing, and probably says more about the race’s character than the results sheet ever will.
Featured image: Carl Downing
What is it?
The Clive Tiley Memorial is a two-day National B stage race on the Mendip plateau, organised by the Bristol Cycling Development Squad and supported by Fenwick’s Bike Products. It runs as the support event to Round 7 of the Junior Open National Series, and the two races together form the Fenwick’s Tours of Mendip. Both start and finish at Hazel Manor, near Ubley in Bath and North East Somerset.
The race is only in its fifth year but has already been through several shapes. The 2023 edition ran to four stages across three days, including an opening time trial. The 2024 and 2025 editions settled at three stages. This year it is two, with no time trial, a change the organisers attribute to road conditions, which have also reduced the race to a single significant climb.
Oscar Hutchings won that first edition in 2022. Ross Fawcett took the 2023 race for Orwell Velo, Jonny Britton won in 2024 for Moonglu Race Team, and Maxwell Hereward won last year for 360 Cycling, holding off Sam Walsham by 20 seconds after three days. None of the four returns.
The route
Saturday’s opening stage is 10 laps of a 13.2-kilometre circuit on the plateau, 132.1 kilometres of racing after a neutralised run of 3.3 kilometres. The lap joins the B3135 three kilometres in and takes in Plummer’s Lane, which means the climb is ridden 10 times and the stage gathers 1,126 metres. Nothing about it is severe – the elevation never varies by more than 70 metres — but repetition does its own work, and on a circuit this exposed, the wind could shape the race as much as the gradient. Primes fall at the end of the second, fourth, and sixth laps, scored 6-4-3-2-1 towards a separate trophy.
Sunday is where the race is decided, and at 124.8 kilometres it is the shorter day. It opens with a single short lap of Saturday’s circuit before dropping off the plateau onto a longer 29.3-kilometre loop, down through Litton and East Harptree on a twisting descent, out to West Harptree, and then back up.
The way back up is Harptree Hill, and it is the whole point of the stage. It runs 1.1 kilometres at an average of 10.2%, steepening to 15.9% at its worst, and tops out at 233 metres after 113 metres of climbing. Taken once, it is a fourth-category climb and nothing much to fear. Taken four times across the closing 90 kilometres, with the fourth ascent as the finish line, it is comfortably the hardest thing in the race. Primes go to the top of the first three; the fourth settles the general classification. A rider who is not climbing well on Saturday evening has nowhere to hide on Sunday.
Riders to watch
The obvious name is Elliott Colyer, who finished sixth here last August riding for TAAP Kalas and was fourth on the decisive final stage. He has had much the best season of anyone in this field since, sitting seventh in The British Continental national rankings. He also arrives in a jersey he designed the plan for: Aero CLCTV is the rider-led collective he founded for 2026. A summit finish in the county where his team is rooted is about as favourable a set-up as he could ask for.
Matthew Gilmour (Nopinz RT) is the only other rider here inside the national top 20, sitting 10th in his first season with the team after Primera–TeamJobs folded. He was second at the Portsdown Classic in February and has been consistently strong throughout the year.
Nopinz RT bring the largest squad in the race, four riders, with Ben Millar, Jack Beveridge, and Callum Orchard alongside Gilmour. Millar was 10th overall here last year and Beveridge 18th, so both know what Sunday costs. Against them, Aero CLCTV field only two.
The most interesting unknown is Travis Harkness, the sole entrant from Spellman–Dublin Port Cycling Team and the only rider here to have started the Rás Tailteann this season. He carries no domestic ranking points because he races almost entirely in Ireland, which makes him impossible to place against the rest of this field and worth watching for exactly that reason.
Beyond that the field thins, though not as sharply as the rankings suggest. Louis Mann (Army Cycling Union) was third at the Inter-Services championships in July and eighth on the opening stage of the Mennock Pass Stage Race in June. Elliot Barratt, riding as a private member, took third at the VC Norwich Road Race last month. League-Fortè Chiropractic are the only other outfit with more than two riders, bringing Joseph Bearman, Ludovic Hirst, and Ben Waghorne; Waghorne was 12th at the Chitterne Road Race in April with Mann 14th and Bearman 15th, which is a fair measure of how tightly packed this end of the field is.
Provisional startlist
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