Alexander Foster carries the U23 Open National Road Series lead into Sunday's finale at Astwood on the worst run of form of his season, with three riders still able to take it off him.
The U23 Open National Road Series reaches its final round at Astwood on Sunday with four riders still capable of taking the title. Cycling Sheffield’s Alexander Foster starts with the advantage, but his teammate James Sawyers, two-time winner Luca Nicholson, and Jamie Whitcher all remain within striking distance—and on a flatter, faster circuit than the series has seen recently, numbers could matter as much as points.
Featured image:Joe Hudson
What is it?
The fifth and final round of the U23 Open National Road Series, promoted by British Cycling’s Central Region and organised by Ian Chatfield on the Astwood circuit north-east of Milton Keynes.
The race is named for Chas Messenger, who died in 2008 and whose fingerprints are on a good deal of the modern sport’s architecture. He was among the figures behind the formation of the British Cycling Federation and managed the national team from 1962 to 1967. He ran the Milk Race, the forerunner of today’s Tour of Britain, from 1958 to 1965 after securing backing from the Milk Marketing Board. He also drove the building of Hillingdon Cycle Circuit, organised the 1982 World Championships at Goodwood, and wrote a number of books on the sport. A lifelong member of the Chequers Road Club, he was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame in 2009.
The series so far
Luca Nicholson opened the series in March at the PB Performance Espoirs Road Race on the Gilmorton circuit with a maiden National B win, soloing clear after going away with BCC Race Team’s George Stephen inside the last 20 kilometres. Alexander Foster answered at the Danum Trophy in April, coming out of a small group with a long-range sprint. The third round, the Stourbridge CC National U23 Road Race at Welland in June, went to Nicholson again by very different means: he bridged up through the groups on the road before coming round Jamie Whitcher in the sprint from a leading four. At the Yorkshire U23 Classic last month, with Nicholson and Lewis Tinsley elsewhere, Isaac Oliver took the biggest win of his career from a three-man move, and Foster, who needed the result most, could manage only 15th.
Best four of five rounds count, and that 15th is why Sunday is not the formality the table suggests. Foster is the only rider at the top of the standings with a full set of four scores: whatever he takes at Astwood replaces the six points from that round, and only if he finishes 15th or better. James Sawyers, who has also ridden all four, drops a three. Nicholson and Whitcher have ridden two rounds apiece and add everything they earn.
Pos
Rider
Team
Pts
Starting
1
Alexander Foster
Cycling Sheffield
72
Yes
2
James Sawyers
Cycling Sheffield
61
Yes
3=
Luca Nicholson
GMS Cycling Team Glabbeek
60
Yes
3=
Lewis Tinsley
BCC Race Team
60
No
5
Jamie Whitcher
Hubo–Scott Cycling Team
56
Yes
6
Henry Hunter
360cycling
54
No
7
John Bardsley
Atom 6–ADWD
46
No
8
George Stephen
BCC Race Team
33
No
9=
Oliver Dawson
JAKROO Handsling Racing
32
No
9=
Caleb Pain
Ride Revolution Coaching
32
No
9=
Samuel Nisbet
Team Tactic U23
32
No
12
Isaac Oliver
Prologue Racing Team
30
No
13
Nathan Smith
Cycling Sheffield
29
Yes
14
Harrison Dainty
JAKROO Handsling Racing
28
No
15
Denholm Edwards
Cycling Sheffield
27
Yes
Four of the top five start. Tinsley and Hunter both finish the series on the scores they have, as do Bardsley, Stephen, Dawson, Pain, Nisbet, and Oliver. BCC Race Team, who have two riders in the top eight, do not have a rider on the startlist at all.
Set aside the drop scores and Foster’s working total is 66, against 60 for Nicholson, 58 for Sawyers, and 56 for Whitcher. Inside the top 10 each place is worth two points, which makes the arithmetic unusually legible. Nicholson has to finish three places ahead of Foster to draw level, and takes the title on countback if he does, with two wins to Foster’s one. Sawyers needs five places, Whitcher six. Should Foster finish outside the top 15 and add nothing at all, Nicholson needs 10th or better, Whitcher 7th, and Sawyers 8th.
Route
Eight laps of the Astwood circuit for 140 kilometres, on the lanes between North Crawley, Chicheley, Hardmead, and Astwood, with the finish by the gates entering Astwood village. The race starts at 10.00.
At roughly 17 kilometres a lap this is a long loop by the standards of the series, and a different proposition to the Yorkshire U23 Classic a month ago. Where that race packed almost 1,500 metres of climbing into 106 kilometres and let the course do the selecting, this is open Ouse valley farmland with the A422 cutting through it: flatter, faster, and considerably harder to break up. Expect a race that holds together deep into the closing laps, which puts the premium on numbers and on a finishing kick.
Riders to watch
Cycling Sheffield hold the first two places in the series and bring six riders, the maximum the regulations allow. On a circuit that should stay together, that is perhaps the most important fact about Sunday.
Image: Joe Hudson
It is also more complicated than it looks. Alexander Foster leads the series, but the 21-year-old has not finished better than 15th in any race since 14 June. His spring was excellent – 3rd at the Clayton Spring Classic, 8th at Gilmorton, victory at the Danum Trophy from a long-range sprint, 4th at the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, 6th at both the Northern Regional Championships and the Stourbridge CC round. Since then, 15th at the Yorkshire U23 Classic has been his best result. A fast finish out of a large group remains exactly the finish that suits him; whether he has the legs for it is the question the series now turns on.
James Sawyers arrives the other way round. The 20-year-old was 2nd at the Scottish Road Race Championships a fortnight ago – behind teammate Sam Barbour, who took the title – and has built his 61 points steadily rather than in one hit: 18th at Gilmorton, 6th at the Danum, 4th at Welland, 9th at the Yorkshire U23 Classic, with 6th at the Timmy James Memorial and 13th at the East Cleveland Classic alongside. He is the form rider of the two, and he needs five places on his own team leader. Barbour comes in as a national champion and has been in form this summer: 5th at the Sam Robinson Memorial in July, then the win at Douglas. Nathan Smith, 3rd at Gilmorton in March, and Denholm Edwards complete a squad with four riders in the series top 15.
Image: That Shot Media
Luca Nicholson is the rider they have to watch. The 19-year-old has won both rounds he has started. He was 2nd at the Wally Gimber, and then had wins at Gilmorton, the Eastern Regional Championship title at the end of May, and at Welland. Both series wins came from moves that went clear, and a bunch finish on a flat circuit is the least useful outcome available to him. He is also here alone, against six Cycling Sheffield riders with every reason to close the road down.
Jamie Whitcher (Hubo–Scott Cycling Team) has turned three series starts into two second places and a DNF, which is a fair summary of a season of narrow misses. The 22-year-old, in his final under-23 year, was runner-up at Welland and again at the Yorkshire U23 Classic, and is strong enough against the clock to have taken 12th in the national under-23 time trial in June and 11th the year before. He has won a stage race overall before, at the 360 Tour of the Northwest, and knows how to commit to a long move.
The best claim on the win itself belongs to a rider with no series points at all. Alex Murphy (Stolen Goat 4Endurance) is the highest-ranked rider in the field by some distance – 7th in The British Continental’s open rankings, on 312 points – having spent the year in the National Road Series rather than chasing under-23 rounds. He won the Portsdown Classic in February, was 4th at the Jock Wadley, 15th at the Rutland–Melton CiCLE Classic, 9th at the Tour of the Reservoir, 5th at the South Molton Grand Prix in July, and 12th at the Beaumont Trophy last month. He arrives with nothing to protect and no reason to sit in, alongside teammates Hugh Aubrey and Huw Watkins.
Image: Mark James
Bobby Buenfeld (Aero CLCTV) is the fourth-highest ranked rider starting. The 19-year-old took 3rd at the Chitterne Road Race in April and 5th at his own team’s Royal Navy Cup in March, and his 9th at Welland is the only series round he has ridden. Ryan Oldfield (Team Tactic U23), seventh at the Yorkshire U23 Classic, is another rider to watch.
The U23 Open National Road Series reaches its final round at Astwood on Sunday with four riders still capable of taking the title. Cycling Sheffield’s Alexander Foster starts with the advantage, but his teammate James Sawyers, two-time winner Luca Nicholson, and Jamie Whitcher all remain within striking distance—and on a flatter, faster circuit than the series has seen recently, numbers could matter as much as points.
Featured image: Joe Hudson
What is it?
The fifth and final round of the U23 Open National Road Series, promoted by British Cycling’s Central Region and organised by Ian Chatfield on the Astwood circuit north-east of Milton Keynes.
The race is named for Chas Messenger, who died in 2008 and whose fingerprints are on a good deal of the modern sport’s architecture. He was among the figures behind the formation of the British Cycling Federation and managed the national team from 1962 to 1967. He ran the Milk Race, the forerunner of today’s Tour of Britain, from 1958 to 1965 after securing backing from the Milk Marketing Board. He also drove the building of Hillingdon Cycle Circuit, organised the 1982 World Championships at Goodwood, and wrote a number of books on the sport. A lifelong member of the Chequers Road Club, he was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame in 2009.
The series so far
Luca Nicholson opened the series in March at the PB Performance Espoirs Road Race on the Gilmorton circuit with a maiden National B win, soloing clear after going away with BCC Race Team’s George Stephen inside the last 20 kilometres. Alexander Foster answered at the Danum Trophy in April, coming out of a small group with a long-range sprint. The third round, the Stourbridge CC National U23 Road Race at Welland in June, went to Nicholson again by very different means: he bridged up through the groups on the road before coming round Jamie Whitcher in the sprint from a leading four. At the Yorkshire U23 Classic last month, with Nicholson and Lewis Tinsley elsewhere, Isaac Oliver took the biggest win of his career from a three-man move, and Foster, who needed the result most, could manage only 15th.
Best four of five rounds count, and that 15th is why Sunday is not the formality the table suggests. Foster is the only rider at the top of the standings with a full set of four scores: whatever he takes at Astwood replaces the six points from that round, and only if he finishes 15th or better. James Sawyers, who has also ridden all four, drops a three. Nicholson and Whitcher have ridden two rounds apiece and add everything they earn.
Four of the top five start. Tinsley and Hunter both finish the series on the scores they have, as do Bardsley, Stephen, Dawson, Pain, Nisbet, and Oliver. BCC Race Team, who have two riders in the top eight, do not have a rider on the startlist at all.
Set aside the drop scores and Foster’s working total is 66, against 60 for Nicholson, 58 for Sawyers, and 56 for Whitcher. Inside the top 10 each place is worth two points, which makes the arithmetic unusually legible. Nicholson has to finish three places ahead of Foster to draw level, and takes the title on countback if he does, with two wins to Foster’s one. Sawyers needs five places, Whitcher six. Should Foster finish outside the top 15 and add nothing at all, Nicholson needs 10th or better, Whitcher 7th, and Sawyers 8th.
Route
Eight laps of the Astwood circuit for 140 kilometres, on the lanes between North Crawley, Chicheley, Hardmead, and Astwood, with the finish by the gates entering Astwood village. The race starts at 10.00.
At roughly 17 kilometres a lap this is a long loop by the standards of the series, and a different proposition to the Yorkshire U23 Classic a month ago. Where that race packed almost 1,500 metres of climbing into 106 kilometres and let the course do the selecting, this is open Ouse valley farmland with the A422 cutting through it: flatter, faster, and considerably harder to break up. Expect a race that holds together deep into the closing laps, which puts the premium on numbers and on a finishing kick.
Riders to watch
Cycling Sheffield hold the first two places in the series and bring six riders, the maximum the regulations allow. On a circuit that should stay together, that is perhaps the most important fact about Sunday.
It is also more complicated than it looks. Alexander Foster leads the series, but the 21-year-old has not finished better than 15th in any race since 14 June. His spring was excellent – 3rd at the Clayton Spring Classic, 8th at Gilmorton, victory at the Danum Trophy from a long-range sprint, 4th at the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, 6th at both the Northern Regional Championships and the Stourbridge CC round. Since then, 15th at the Yorkshire U23 Classic has been his best result. A fast finish out of a large group remains exactly the finish that suits him; whether he has the legs for it is the question the series now turns on.
James Sawyers arrives the other way round. The 20-year-old was 2nd at the Scottish Road Race Championships a fortnight ago – behind teammate Sam Barbour, who took the title – and has built his 61 points steadily rather than in one hit: 18th at Gilmorton, 6th at the Danum, 4th at Welland, 9th at the Yorkshire U23 Classic, with 6th at the Timmy James Memorial and 13th at the East Cleveland Classic alongside. He is the form rider of the two, and he needs five places on his own team leader. Barbour comes in as a national champion and has been in form this summer: 5th at the Sam Robinson Memorial in July, then the win at Douglas. Nathan Smith, 3rd at Gilmorton in March, and Denholm Edwards complete a squad with four riders in the series top 15.
Luca Nicholson is the rider they have to watch. The 19-year-old has won both rounds he has started. He was 2nd at the Wally Gimber, and then had wins at Gilmorton, the Eastern Regional Championship title at the end of May, and at Welland. Both series wins came from moves that went clear, and a bunch finish on a flat circuit is the least useful outcome available to him. He is also here alone, against six Cycling Sheffield riders with every reason to close the road down.
Jamie Whitcher (Hubo–Scott Cycling Team) has turned three series starts into two second places and a DNF, which is a fair summary of a season of narrow misses. The 22-year-old, in his final under-23 year, was runner-up at Welland and again at the Yorkshire U23 Classic, and is strong enough against the clock to have taken 12th in the national under-23 time trial in June and 11th the year before. He has won a stage race overall before, at the 360 Tour of the Northwest, and knows how to commit to a long move.
The best claim on the win itself belongs to a rider with no series points at all. Alex Murphy (Stolen Goat 4Endurance) is the highest-ranked rider in the field by some distance – 7th in The British Continental’s open rankings, on 312 points – having spent the year in the National Road Series rather than chasing under-23 rounds. He won the Portsdown Classic in February, was 4th at the Jock Wadley, 15th at the Rutland–Melton CiCLE Classic, 9th at the Tour of the Reservoir, 5th at the South Molton Grand Prix in July, and 12th at the Beaumont Trophy last month. He arrives with nothing to protect and no reason to sit in, alongside teammates Hugh Aubrey and Huw Watkins.
Bobby Buenfeld (Aero CLCTV) is the fourth-highest ranked rider starting. The 19-year-old took 3rd at the Chitterne Road Race in April and 5th at his own team’s Royal Navy Cup in March, and his 9th at Welland is the only series round he has ridden. Ryan Oldfield (Team Tactic U23), seventh at the Yorkshire U23 Classic, is another rider to watch.
Provisional startlist
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