Young Welshman Ed Laverack powered to his first British Hill Climb National Championships title last Sunday on Haytor in Devon. The 25-year-old professional rider set an unmatchable time of 11 minutes 37 seconds on the 5.5km climb to comfortably see of Paul Double of Velo Club Venta by 9 seconds. AreoCoach’s Richard Bussell, who took third, was 29 seconds adrift.
Laverack, who races for the Continental-level SwiftCarbon Pro Cycling team, impressed in cold but dry conditions to take the title and also better the course record he had set in 2018.
Laverack broke the 39-year old Haytor Hill Climb record in 2018 with a time of 12 minutes 24 seconds. At the weekend, the Welshman blitzed this previous best time by a further 47 seconds.
It was a day of tumbling records as Hayley Simmonds also broke the women’s course record by 45 seconds, which she already held, to finish in a time of 14 minutes 17 seconds.
It was a top-level performance from the Llanelli-born Laverack who has since shared his ride on Strava.
A longer climb than usual for a Hill Climb Nationals, Laverack managed to sustain a gruelling 428 watts for the 5.5km, 6 per cent climb at an average speed of 26.5kmh. With a claimed weight of 59kg, this meant that he held 7.25w/kg from the entire ride.
In a measured performance, Laverack withstood the temptation to go too hard, with his wattage remaining around 450w for most of the climb before upping to 500w for the final 500m.
Laverack’s cadence was also relatively low for such a long climb, averaging 93rpm.
With sections of downhill within the climb, Laverack even had the rarity of breaching 50kmh on the ride which certainly helped to skew the 26kmh average speed.
Unsurprisingly, with the course record came the Strava KOM (the real prize) as Laverack set a time of 11 minutes 27 seconds on the segment called ‘Haytor official HC’.
It was one of 20 crowns gained by the youngster on the day alongside his new blue, white and red striped jersey, who was humble in victory: ‘Executed the plan. Had good legs. Great support from the crowd and online. Glad I could finish the job.’