Rowing at University in Cambridge

The Bumps

As Michaelmas term begins, thousands of gullible freshers are herded into boats and made to sit in queues on the river while more sensible people are still in bed. They are generally conned into this by crusty old boaties who go on about how much fun rowing can be. So are they lying or just mad? Well, perhaps neither....

2nd Lent boat finally bump Catz I and give them some grief - Lents 98

The two principal attractions of the college boatie life only really become apparent once you've done it for a while. Firstly, there's the social life. Any crew or club worth its salt is fuelled not so much on pasta and malt loaf as it is on alcohol. Formal halls with other crews, club cocktails and the termly boat club dinners provide frequent opportunities for booze-soaked mingling.

Happy after winning blades, Lents 98

The other big attraction of rowing in Cambridge, and the one which keeps so many people coming back for more, is the Bumps. These races take place late in the Lent Term ("the Lents") and at the end of May Term (logically enough, "the Mays"). The May Bumps in particular attract a huge number of rowers - 172 crews in ten divisions, that's over 1500 people. (In 1999, 14 of those crews - 11 men's and 3 women's - were from 1st & 3rd, which gives you some idea of the size of our club.)

The Bumps are one of the most exciting things that is is possible to do as a student at Cambridge. The aim of these pages is to explain how they work, explain all the terminology such as overbump, technical row-over and sandwich, and describe some of the exciting traditions that surround the Bumps and make them what they are.

1. A description of the Bumps - What and Why?!
2. The Bumps Course, how to get there and a map
3. How they work - the start, divisions, bumps, overbumps and row-overs
4. The hooter system and bumping, celebrating, Blades, and Headships

	The men's 1st VIII get embroiled in mahem, in the '96 Lent Bumps

This website is also the unique home of the mobile bumps results service, which allows message posts and results to be relayed to the website via SMS. The results are then converted into up-to-date bumps charts, which are viewable in the results section and using WAP-enabled mobile phones, so you can get the latest results, wherever you are, within minutes of racing. Information on these services can be found here.

Other links

• Our recent May Bumps results
• Our recent Lent Bumps results
• Our Headships of the Lent Bumps in 2000 and 1998 described by the Telegraph & Cambridge Evening News
• An archive of reports of Mays races in the 1960s, when First and Third were last head of the river for a number of years consecutively
• The Cambridge colleges section, with bumps statistics and infortmation on all the competing colleges.