VC Baracchi reliability trials a great success

Velo Club Baracchi 50-mile reliability rides last Sunday organised by John Thompson were a great success.

Setting off

Thirty riders took part, half of whom were club members and the others were from Strada Sport, Rock Estate, Gt Yarmouth CC, Pakefield Peddlers and one rider, Lez Young, who rides a trike for Middlesex RC and came up from Heathrow for the event.

The EDP cycling correspondent Fergus Muir supplied the following account of Young’s day, describing him as, “Quite a quick rider – winner of both the Tricycle Association season-long Time Trial League and the TA Criterium League in 2015.”

Lez Young

He said Young “was a bit slow getting away from the start, so was riding alone. He lost track of the route at 15 miles so he consulted the route-sheet as a last resort. The route sheet blew out of his hand into a puddle. Then a car splashed through the puddle and the route-sheet disappeared.”

Guest rider Lez Young on a speedier day (photo by courtesy of Fergus Muir)

So Young set his Garmin to “Return the way you have come” and after getting back to the start he found a good pub for lunch and was quite happy with his day in unfamiliar country.

Most of the VCB riders were in the 3.5-hour group, though Thompson himself set off earlier. Ray Skipper took the names and Paul Bedford’s shop Life Cycles served as the HQ.

On the road to Mutford

The 3.5-hour group stayed together most of the way to Holton and then divided. The first part of the ride was into the wind, with side-winds between Halesworth and Homersfield and more assistance from the wind back to Bungay, Stockton, Gillingham and especially on the main road to St Olaves. The last leg via Somerleyton was not quite as easy.

There was a 3-hour group that set off half an hour later. In various places from Toft Monks onwards the faster riders began to pass the slower ones so that the various riders came back within fifteen minutes or so in Oulton Broad.

VCB riders in the 3.5-hour category were Dave Loynes, Chris Womack, Keith Wink, Paul Killett, John Swanbury, Chris Rivers, George Kerridge, Nicki Hawkes, Pat Harbord, Paul Reed and Nick Hammond with nine or ten others from other clubs.

In the fast group Liam Gentry, James Moore and Mark Richards rode with Nick Esser of Strada Sport, Ian Sandall, Mark Nickerson and Rob Anderson of GYCC, James Drake of Rock Estate.