Cambridge in August

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Bumping any other boat would be enjoyable. Bumping Xpress 4 might also be awkward. I think it might even generate a fine for the club from the CRA, assuming there's a rule that clubs have to enter their crews in the correct order of strength. Of course, that's no reason not to try to bump them if the occasion arises.

We are going to need to get off to a perfect start on the first day because it looks as if the boat we are chasing (City 10) will be slower than us, but the boat chasing us (Cantabs 11) could well be faster than us, so it might be a race to make our bump before we get bumped ourselves. Cantabs are a club with a strong link to Hills Road Sixth Form College, so I think they get lots of sixth formers from there, and recent former sixth formers from there, and that new influx of youth may be the reason why they appear from last year's results to be on the most upward trajectory of any of the town clubs.

[ad hoc]

Got a shot at catching and bumping Xpress 4 too. That would be enjoyable, I'd imagine

[San Bernardhinault]

Good year last year for Xpress 5. Can you keep it up?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Yes, I remember the Cambridge university bumps being in the Times in the old days.

Colour diagrams for last year's Cambridge town bumps:

http://www.crarowing.co.uk/town-bump...-bumps/results

[San Bernardhinault]

They were always black and white in the Oxford Mail, which made it a little challenging to follow.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Yes, those diagrams are lovely, provided the lines are in different colours.

[San Bernardhinault]

I don't recall Oxford ever having town bumps when I was a kid. There were summer and winter university bumps, of course. One of my favourite things was to look at the diagrams showing the results in the local paper. All those crossing lines over the course of the days were inordinately fascinating, despite me having no personal affinity for, say, the Oriel VI boat.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

My dad coxed the Sidney Sussex 3rd boat to a 4 bump success (or whatever it is called) during his time as a student. We still have the rudder at my mum's place with the names of the crew on it.

Nice memento ad hoc. There isn't really a generic word for the 4 bump success. Rowers refer to getting that result as "getting blades", so for a cox I guess it would be "getting a rudder". It's understood that you're only allowed to claim such a trophy if you get a bump on each of the 4 days.

[Balderdasha]

It's a kind of chasing of lost youth for me: I wanted to row for my college (Jesus) when I first started university aged 18, but I'm small and I was brow-beaten into coxing instead in my first term. I rowed once in the Lent Bumps in my second year and we went down 2 places. Then I was lucky enough to back to university in middle age and was stunned to find that despite that additional age handicap I was welcomed with open arms by the lovely people at the boat club of my new college (St Edmund's), and had a great term rowing with them, but then had to have surgeries which meant I never rowed bumps during my time at Eddies. I thought that that really was it then, but then the lovely people at my new law firm astonished me similarly by welcoming me into their squad in my mid-50s, so here I am with another chance to get my first ever bump, 37 years after I first tried to join a crew.

This could equally go on the weird places I've slept thread, but the quote above prompted the memory so I'm leaving it here. St Edmund's was my next door college. At graduation, we were given a celebratory meal with lots of free wine, followed by free port. When that ran out, an elderly don from St Edmund's invited us to the bar next door and started buying rounds of vodka and lemonade. That's the last thing I remember until I woke up at 4am and couldn't work out where I was. I rang my long-suffering friend who asked me to describe what I could see. "It's just white, everything is white" I said. "Are you maybe in a toilet cubicle?" she asked perceptively. I was. I couldn't remember which toilet cubicle I was in or where or how to get home, so my friend talked me through it like a low-budget episode of the crystal maze. "Can you see a door handle? Good. Open it. Now what can you see? Turn left." Etc. I collapsed into my bed and was woken up about three hours later by another housemate wielding a digital camera (they were still fairly new at the time) and asking "Why do I have a photo of your arse?"

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Had to google this bumps lark. Obviously, unlike most of the high fliers on this board, I went to the wrong university.

Sporting, there are well over 1,000 people involved in the Cambridge Town Bumps (as rowers, coxes, coaches or other support roles), only a small portion of who (a long way under half I would guess) went to one of the universities (i.e Oxbridge) which has student bumps races. Some others learnt to row at other university boat clubs, many started as novices through local employers (such as mine) who field works crews through one of the town clubs, and many more just started in adulthood off their own individual bat because they saw crews out on the river and were interested enough to join a town boat club. There is not remotely any kind of Oxbridge culture, it's very much on the town side of the town/'gown divide.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

I love it when a plan comes together . . .

Maybe I could arrange some kind of sabbatical arrangement.

Ha, it would be great to see you in Cambridge Ursus!

[ursus arctos]

We were told not to even think about it, given our relative penury of boats and the potential implications of having to swim in the Charles.

[ad hoc]

There's only EEG on this thread I think went to Cambridge

[Sporting]

Had to google this bumps lark. Obviously, unlike most of the high fliers on this board, I went to the wrong university.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Thanks NS!

[Nocturnal Submission]

There aren't any age-specific divisions, but there are a good number of boats with crews wholly over retirement age to be found in the lower reaches of the start order. My next door neighbour is 65 and rows with one of the other clubs, though she has been doing volunteer work in Nepal for most of the year and so won't be in a bumps crew this year.

It's a kind of chasing of lost youth for me: I wanted to row for my college (Jesus) when I first started university aged 18, but I'm small and I was brow-beaten into coxing instead in my first term. I rowed once in the Lent Bumps in my second year and we went down 2 places. Then I was lucky enough to back to university in middle age and was stunned to find that despite that additional age handicap I was welcomed with open arms by the lovely people at the boat club of my new college (St Edmund's), and had a great term rowing with them, but then had to have surgeries which meant I never rowed bumps during my time at Eddies. I thought that that really was it then, but then the lovely people at my new law firm astonished me similarly by welcoming me into their squad in my mid-50s, so here I am with another chance to get my first ever bump, 37 years after I first tried to join a crew.

That's a lovely story, EEG. It's great when one gets to right a long-standing regret or disappointment.

[ursus arctos]

I love it when a plan comes together . . .

Maybe I could arrange some kind of sabbatical arrangement.

[ad hoc]

My dad coxed the Sidney Sussex 3rd boat to a 4 bump success (or whatever it is called) during his time as a student. We still have the rudder at my mum's place with the names of the crew on it.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

There aren't any age-specific divisions, but there are a good number of boats with crews wholly over retirement age to be found in the lower reaches of the start order. My next door neighbour is 65 and rows with one of the other clubs, though she has been doing volunteer work in Nepal for most of the year and so won't be in a bumps crew this year.

It's a kind of chasing of lost youth for me: I wanted to row for my college (Jesus) when I first started university aged 18, but I'm small and I was brow-beaten into coxing instead in my first term. I rowed once in the Lent Bumps in my second year and we went down 2 places. Then I was lucky enough to back to university in middle age and was stunned to find that despite that additional age handicap I was welcomed with open arms by the lovely people at the boat club of my new college (St Edmund's), and had a great term rowing with them, but then had to have surgeries which meant I never rowed bumps during my time at Eddies. I thought that that really was it then, but then the lovely people at my new law firm astonished me similarly by welcoming me into their squad in my mid-50s, so here I am with another chance to get my first ever bump, 37 years after I first tried to join a crew.

[ursus arctos]

Man, if only I had known. I happened upon training for the University Bumps in 1977 and was completely enthralled.

Is there an over 65s division?

It would take me a while to get back into a semblance of shape.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Ursus, I'd also never heard of our town bumps until I moved back to Cambridge some years ago, and I was amazed to learn that they are almost as venerable, and now on very nearly the same scale, as the University bumps. The first University bumps on the Cam were in 1827, the first Town Bumps in 1868. Of course, there has been rather more evolution in the identity and naming of the town rowing clubs over that period than in the Colleges: there is no longer a town rowing club, for example, called "University and College Servants".

i couldn't possibly comment on our firm's brand identity promotion. I try to ignore it as much as I can.

[ursus arctos]

You are going to tell me that town bumps have been going in for centuries, aren't you.

And here I had been led to believe that it was strictly a university thing.

EEG, it isn't nice to talk about your brand identity that way. As you know better than me, the firm has spent shitloads promoting that colour.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

The Division start times are here:

http://www.crarowing.co.uk/town-bump...umps/bumpsdivs

The boat I'm in (Xpress 5) is midway down the 3rd men's division, so our start cannon is fired at 7:35pm on Monday and Tuesday, and at 6.15pm on Thursday and Friday.

We start in 11th place in the division on the Monday (start order@ http://www.crarowing.co.uk/town-bump...umpsstartorder ) but naturally we're hoping to start in 10th place on Tuesday, then 9th on Thurs and 8th on Friday. If you see our division, you'll recognise our crew by the hideous pink/lilac rowing shirts we wear with our law firm's branding. I'm the guy who's about 25 to 30 years older than the other rowers in the boat.

[ad hoc]

What time are the town bumps races on EEG? Be happy to come down to those if they're an early evening thing.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

I'm rowing in the Town Bumps races w/b Mon 15 July (good spectator sport if you fancy watching the chaos from the garden of the Plough in Fen Ditton) and am away from Sat 27th, but would be up for a few pints on some evening in w/b 22nd.