British Cycling Hall of Fame and more 2010 thoughts

The initial 50 inductees to the British Cycling Hall of Fame have been announced, and it's great to see some of the mountain bikers I grew up idolising on that list, in particular the late great Jason McRoy who as a fellow North Easterner and top class racer was a bit of a hero to me in my early teens. Caroline Alexander, David Baker and Tim Gould are also worthy inclusions as some of the best XC racers ever produced in the UK.

Team line-ups for 2010 from elsewhere in Europe and the UK have started to appear, but there's little news on who will be riding for which team in the UK. Liam Killeen, having parted company with Trek and after an injury-hit 2009, will be riding for an as-yet unknown team. There will also be a different look to the BMBS Elite field, especially the Elite Female one, where regular winner and podium finisher Jenn O'Connor is returning to her native New Zealand, and I believe Melanie Spath might be returning to Germany. On the additions side, the top 5 Expert riders by year end rankings should be in Elite for 2010, which should see the likes of Maxine Filby continuing her meteoric rise up the categories and Jessie Roberts joining her, plus possibly some of the Juniors although I believe Carla Haines will be in Expert next year. On the Elite Men's side, Sion O'Boyle moves up from Expert to join his brother in Elite, and Phil Lenney, George Budd and Christian Aucote should join him.

More details are emerging regarding the 2010 UCI cross country World Cup race in Dalby, Yorkshire, but the British Cycling World Cup mini website is still looking a little less polished than the Rare Management equivalent for the Fort William event, though Rare have had longer to perfect it.... As outlined at http://www.olibeck.com , Oli Beckingsale and Nick Craig have been doing some of the course testing and making sure that the 'chicken run' slow lines take more time than the more technically difficult lines, which is as it should be, and unlike the 2009 Mountain Mayhem course! Oli's assertion that the course is a good one and has been improved over the 2009 BMBS event course is good news, and bodes well for a hopefully fun but technically testing race in April.