Hawkes flies to win

Nicki Hawkes of Velo Club Baracchi won the women’s category and Chris Womack rode a personal best in the East Anglian CC 10-mile open time trial at Earsham.

Nicki after her win

In the tandem event, the quicker of two mismatched machines was the VC Baracchi tandem of John Swanbury and Ali Banks.

The tandems were off first and the VCB pair was never likely to be beaten by the tandem trike of Fergus Muir of VTTA (East) and Mark Ready of Diss & District CC, as the various resistance factors working against the progress of a trike are greater.

Indeed, the VCB crew, working hard into the headwind first leg and trying to capitalise on the tailwind return, achieved 23:36 to the tandem trike riders’ 26:50.

The tandem pair warming up

Hawkes fought a close battle with Gillian Reynolds of Willesden CC and Sally Withey of VC Norwich at the head of the women’s category and came out the winner by twelve seconds from Reynolds with 25:35.

Womack was pleased with his 24:11 personal best, very close to the best VCB time on the day recorded by the much younger veteran Mark Newnham (23:55).  Swanbury rode again in the solo event, but found it hard going and with 26:47 just scraped in with a three second margin on Mike Rainton (26:50), who in turn was just under half a minute quicker than John Thompson (27:18).

A new course record of 20:09 was set by Nino Piccoli of Team Pedal Revolution.co.uk, who beat Ian Cammish of Planet X (20:44), Will Bamber of Cult Racing (21:06) and Stuart Pryce of Nottingham Clarion CC (21:30).

Ged Coles of Wolsey RC won the top veteran prize with +8:50 (faster than his veteran standard time by that amount).  Womack was not far outside the veteran prizes with his +6:19.

Womack again rode well in Sunday’s CC Breckland 25-mile time trial from Earsham, with 1-03:25.   Swanbury could not match it and finished in 1-05:03.  Thompson’s time was 1-10:55.

It was sunny and initially not at all windy but the westerly breeze did pick up during the event so for most riders the second lap was harder than the first.

The event was won by Peter Balls of West Suffolk Wheelers with 53:44 with Daniel Bloy of King’s Lynn CC second in 55:13 and Andrew Leggett of Stowmarket & District CC third in 55:32.

Laura Gambling was the top lady with a 1-01:35 personal course-best and Ged Coles was top veteran twice in a row with +20:02 on standard, from his 1-05:36 ride.

VCB rider Gary Matthews’ time in the “50” last week was 2-10:39.

On Sunday October 9 at 9am, VC Baracchi hosts an entry-on-the-line informal duathlon which starts outside Gisleham Middle School for the Keith Stephens Memorial Trophy, open to all runners and cyclists from Lowestoft.  All entries on the day will be welcomed.