VCB’s Richards stars at Old Buckenham

Richards in second wheel

Mark Richards and James Moore rode well in the Old Buckenham Village Green ‘Tour of Britain’ Races, organised by Diss CC with support from Breckland District Council as part of the festivities surrounding the Tour.

Richards secured third place in the race for third and fourth cats and Moore was tenth. Darren Rutterford (Aylsham Road Club) won from Charlie Wright (VC Norwich) and Moore in third.

The races were on a flat closed circuit of 1.1km round the village green after the seventh stage of the Tour of Britain professional race had passed through the village.

Richards riding fourth

Richards and Moore then both took part in the one-lap time trial that followed on the same circuit, which Richards won.

The whole village had entered into the spirit of the occasion with a beer festival and fete as well as racing for youngsters. There is some talk about these Old Buckenham criterium races (or “crits”) being repeated next year.

There’s a local pub too!

A racing machine?

In the Norwich Amateur Bicycle Club’s open 10-mile time trial based at Wortwell Richards’ legs were still tired from his previous day’s rides, particularly, he said, the short time trial.

He and Moore both had good rides, with 22:41 and 22:49 respectively. John Swanbury and Ali Banks rode the tandem in 22:55 and Richard Allen enjoyed one of his infrequent forays onto the A143 with 30:09.

Daniel Bloy of Team VeloVelocity.co.uk won in 20:41 from Oliver Milk of Tri-Anglia Triathlon Club in 21:38 and James Trenchard of Team Pedal Revolution.co.uk 21:42.

Philip Hargreaves of VC Norwich won the veterans’ award with 22:31 which gave him +4:43 on his veteran age standard time of 27:14 at age 56. Team VeloVelocity won the team prize.

There was a separate Women’s Eastern Racing League 10-mile event won by Bobbie Mach of Team EPS/CSS p/b Shebell & Shebell (over here at Mildenhall from the USA) in 26:53, narrowly beating the much more local rider Denise Hurren of Sole Bay Cycle Sport into second place. She achieved 27:03, a personal best. Twelve women rode.

Chris Womack rode in the VTTA East Anglia open 10-mile time trial on the A11 “E2/10” course based at Six Mile Bottom and was hugely disappointed with the conditions.

Though Saturday’s rain had passed through it remained windy from the WSW, probably the least welcome direction. As one of the other riders commented afterwards, “Wind. Terrible wind. The horror, the horror …”

It was not surprising that Womack’s time was not up there with his best ones and he said, “What a waste of time that was; very strong head wind out to the turn and suffered on the way back, resulting in the slowest time since March.”

The time in question was 25:23. The top three fastest were Gary Empson of Anglia Velo 20.54, Carl Whitwell St. Ives CC 20.57 and Gary Turnock Finsbury Park CC 21.05

This weekend’s open event is the CC Breckland 50-mile time trial on the A11. VCB riders Womack, Richards, Moore, John Thompson and also Swanbury and Banks on the tandem have entered.

The professional peloton arrives