Wednesday evening’s Exeter Wheelers CC Open Ten Mile Time Trial took place earlier this week on a very warm evening with a good south-easterly breeze.
This event was previously run on the Honiton (mainly) A30 dual-carriageway course, but last year the decision was made to move it as the main A30 has become very busy, and the course featured a somewhat alarming ‘turn’ where riders had to take two right turns across traffic – not ideal in terms of safety. The new course was to have been on the Smeatharpe ‘ridge’ road up on the Blackdown Hills. However, potholes put paid to that plan – EWCC committee members visited the roads back in early April, reported the copious potholes but to no avail – local authorities are starved of funds nowadays and the potholes could not be repaired in time . . . so Plan C was arrived at.
Plan C – run the event on the Honiton ‘club course’, which uses the old A30 from near Honiton down to Patteson’s Cross and back, then out again to just past the cross. Not the fastest of courses due to its lack of flatness and its two ‘turns’. These factors were perhaps off-putting factor for some ‘testers’, leading to a slightly lower entry that might be expected for our Open 10, but it was the right thing to do to proceed with the event despite all.
Seventeen riders signed up for the race, and the wind which was not ill blew lots of good ! Most riders recorded ‘Course PBs’ on the night, helped by the warm conditions and the fact that the two eastward legs provided a helping tailwind and there was only the one (westward) leg into the wind. The event also saw Exeter Wheelers taking the top four places – full results can be found here on the CTT website.
It was definitely a course PB for youngster Michael Mason-Sanders of EWCC, as he improved his time by nearly two minutes on his previous only ride on this course (and indeed his first ever Ten Mile Time Trial) two weeks ago, 24:51 v 26:50. Michael said afterwards “Yeah, the conditions certainly helped, but it was also that this time I went better because I knew what to expect and how to gauge my effort – I am enjoying doing these races, they seem to be a great way to get serious training in and also to gauge fitness”.
Thanks go to organiser Ian Hennessey, timekeepers Rob Barrow, Ken Evans and Pete Bishop, and to Dave Sheehan, Catherine Finlayson, Andy and Fin Webb, Nik and Greg Rorke, Jane Mason and Phil Harris for all turning out to marshall the event. And to Elly for managing the sign-on desk and being on tea and cake duty. Phil also put out the signage and collected it afterwards.
Michael Mason-Sanders went well over the May bank holiday weekend as well, venturing down to Cornwall to compete in the Wheal Jane Classic, promoted by the thriving Wheal Velocity club, where he rode in the ‘Youth’ category. The two-day event featured four separate races, being a 1 mile time trial, ‘short format’ and a ‘long format’ criterium races on a challenging undulating circuit, and a hill climb.
Michael triumphed in three out of four of them, and only narrowly missed out on first place in the hill climb. He had comfortable winning margins in both of the crits, in each finishing a good few bike lengths ahead of second place, after he had earlier won the time trial first stage. It wasn’t all plain sailing for him, being as he was the only Exeter Wheeler riding – in the crits he would’ve benefitted from a team mate to work with, but he still won them both so hey ho chapeau ! Next year he’ll stepping up to the ‘Junior’ ranks, when he’ll be able to race against riders in the 16 – 18 age category, where there will be both bigger fields and stronger competition – “Yes I am really looking forward to that !” says Michael. We wish him every success !
Amongst our senior riders, there were 4th places for EWCC’s Ben Zissimos and Andrew Whittemore down at the Torbay Velopark in Round 4 of the ‘Cream First’ circuit race series – Ben’s placing was in the 4th cat race whilst Andrew’s was in the cat. 2/3 race.
The next evening ten will take place this coming Wednesday the 3rd of June, and will be organised by CS Dynamo, meaning the EWCC ‘Triple Lock’ team of ‘Wheelers Mike, Phil and Pete can take a back seat for the night.
Finally, we are looking for a third ‘Wheeler to join the two already entered in the National 24 Hour Time Trial Championship in late July. If you like riding a bike, and the more riding the better, then riding a bike for 24 hours will be just your cup of tea ! We need three riders to make up a team, you see . . . .