Super Series Insider reflections on the season opener

Super Series insider and wheelchair athlete James Bilham gave us some great insights as he competed in the 2025 Super Series. He’s back for 2026, giving us the inside track of racing on the Super Series, starting off with his reflections on the season opener at Oulton Park.

Bang. And just like that daylight saving is gone. Clocks are racing forwards and that can only mean one thing. It’s time once again for the Oulton Park Duathlon and Para Duathlon. After last year’s postponement, the event is back to its rightful spot in March and marks the start of the 2026 Super Series.

Oulton Park Duathlon is also the Paraduathlon national champs and an Age Group team qualifier, so the atmosphere is always bouncing and the organisation top notch. If anybody is thinking twice about entering next year, don’t, just do it!

Oulton Park is also something of a home race for me. I live just up the road in Chester, and have raced Oulton Park in a car and on a bike prior to my accident a few times. It feels like a spiritual home, so I’ll be on the start line as long as I can be and it’s great to see so many familiar faces around the event.

Race day. We’d lost an hours sleep due to the clocks going forward so I woke up and needed the coffee. If I was in an American diner there would have been a cliché ‘and keep them coming’ conversation with the waitress. As it goes, I wasn’t, I was at home and my wife is lovely, but I’m not that brave, so a couple of nespresso shots and a large bowl of porridge, pick up a couple of bags of kit and off we go.

I picked up Laura, my coach and headed down to the venue. Usually I’d love to be supporting the races before and after, but the weather forecast was terrible, and the early start meant straight into registration. It was great to see the same familiar faces – volunteers without who these events wouldn’t work – ready and waiting as usual and we got signed in. The team had even reserved some parking spaces for us, and a pit garage for para athletes entry to transition, separate from the rest of the racing for our convenience and keeping transition clear. As wheelchair athletes we have to warm up in transition, because all out kit needs to be there and we can’t go for the traditional triathletes run around the car park without it.

This year, I was unfortunately the only wheelchair user on the start line. On this, if anybody is thinking of taking part and wants some advice or tips to get started, do get in touch. I’ll be happy to help and would love to pack out the start line! I got started to tonnes of support and cheers from the sidelines and off I went.

I still have nightmares of my first ever duathlon, my first race as a para athlete here at Oulton Park. As you start, you drop down a dip and the climb back up the other side is reasonably steep. When it’s damp, it can be hard to maintain grip on the racing chair’s push rims and then you stop. This happened to me on my first race. I literally went backwards in the first two minutes of my first ever race! I’m a little bit quicker now, and a little braver on the down part of the dip, giving me most of the momentum to get over the brow of the hill. Luckily it was a dry day at this point, so I had plenty of grip. Accelerate all the way down to the turn. Make the turn in one go. Another trauma ticked off. Back round to the start line ready for another lap. Adrian the organiser is there supporting and I hear him say “Use all the track, you’ve paid for it” which makes me smile. It’s something I picked up from racing cars on track, and I used to coach cyclists about crit racing, and the advice is still true here.

Second time down the dip. Second time up the other side. Feeling good now. Complete the lap and into transition. Laura is there – ready and waiting. Straight into my handcycle and straight out onto the track. Feel good. No noticeable fatigue, no stress.

My power meter and heart rate strap haven’t connected to my head unit, that’s really annoying. I don’t use them to pace my race, especially at somewhere like Oulton Park that is undulating so you race on feel and just go hard, all the time, but I wanted the data! I tell myself it doesn’t matter, don’t get stressed now, you can’t change it. You know the plan, just push, get over the hill. I don’t remember the hill being so evil on the bike, but gradients hit different on a handcycle. I hit the hill and feel like I might have remembered it wrong as the first ten seconds feel easy. Boom. Gravity takes over, momentum is lost and it’s a slow, awful grind. Stick to the plan, get over the gradient, keep pushing but back off ‘just enough’ to recover.  It works. I settle into a rhythm, and everything comes under control. Repeat four times. I feel surprisingly good coming to the end of the fourth lap. I don’t think I could have gone much harder, that gradient just burns too many matches, but I paced it just right,

Into transition, and back into the race chair for a short lap and across the finish line. It always feels like a hollow victory for myself, with no other competitors, but the support doesn’t make it feel that way. There are loads of spectators at the finish line, all celebrating and making sure they get the obligatory photos.

Within about five minutes it had started raining, so we backed the car into the pit garage, loaded it up with all the gear and went to get a warm coffee and dry clothes on before returning for the podium. By the time we got back to the circuit the other para races were well under way, but it was very, very wet so unashamedly we hid in our cars rather than supporting. Sorry guys and girls who were racing, we just didn’t have it in us! You were absolute heroes racing in that weather!

It was course personal bests for me in all segments so it was a great result, and I can’t wait for the rest of the season ahead!