News: West Midlands Road Race League Winner 2024

Winner of this year’s West Midlands Road Race League supported by Fusion Media was a blast from the past, former GB international Ian Gilkes, who showed the younger riders a thing or two by picking up healthy points in every round he rode, and then hung on in on a tough finale on the Astley Course.

News: West Midlands Road Race League Winner 2024

Gilkes is now 55 but has repeatedly shown riders 30 years his junior a clean pair of heels in the West Midlands races, winning rounds of the region’s evening handicap series since his race comeback last year. Back in the 1990s, the Beeston RC rider was one of the strongest amateurs in the UK, winning a stage of the Milk Race and the overall at the Girvan 3-Day, as well as taking podiums in now defunct amateur classics such as the Tour of the Cotswolds and Archer GP.

The WMRRL was run over eight rounds from March to September, with a variety of Reg A and Reg B races on courses ranging from pancake flat to “lumpy”, with a very distinguished winner to round one, the Halesowen Academy RR on March 24 – Tom Williams of Thriva SRCT, who would go on to take the Rydale GP. A total of 108 riders from West Midlands contested the races over the 2024 season.

Gilkes finished third in round 2, the Wolverhampton Wheelers promoted Two Counties RR on the tough Bobbington course, a race run off in horrendous rain and cold, and went into the final round, the Nick Clayton Memorial on September 1, with a seven point lead over Tom Herbert of Bridgnorth.

The duo both made the leading split of around 15 riders on the “lumpy” circuit near Stourbridge but the series was effectively decided when Herbert was dislodged during a late flurry of attacks while Gilkes hung on for 11thplace, 15sec behind race winner Lewis Tinsley of HUUB-BCC. Herbert had some consolation however as he led Bridgnorth to the team prize for the series ahead of Halesowen A & CC.

“I’d like to thank Fusion Media, who supported the series for the third season in succession,” said West Midlands board road lead William Fotheringham. “And also many thanks to our organising clubs, Halesowen, Solihull, Wyre Forest, Wolverhampton, Gannett and Royal Leamington. The series will be back next year, and more potential organising clubs have come forward, which is great to see.”

WMRRL final overall:
1. Ian Gilkes (Beeston) 569 points;
2. Tom Herbert (Bridgnorth) 560 points;
3. James Satoor (Bridgnorth) 465 points;
4. Chris Childs (Bridgnorth) 411 points;
5. Oliver Searle (Enable/MI) 405;
6. Luke Cairney (Gannett CC) 382;
7. Matt Clarke (Bridgnorth) 366;
8. Luke Mannings (Halesowen) 361;
9. Isaak Herbert (Halesowen) 270;
10. Matthew Smith (Wylde Green) 270.

Team: Bridgnorth.

Full standings here: https://westmidsroadracing.co.uk/2024/10/west-mids-rr-league-2024-standings/