A great week for Esser, Richards, Dennington, Hayward and Womack!

A great week for Velo Club Baracchi riders included a team prize in the VC Norwich open 10, third place in the same event for Mark Richards with a time nearly equal to his personal best and a new lifetime personal best for Nick Esser in a 10-mile event near Hull.

Esser

VCB won the team prize in Monday’s VC Norwich event through the efforts of Richards, who was also third overall in 19:59 (30.02mph), Paul Dennington, who was at his fastest for two seasons in 21:15, also taking second prize in his age category, and Paul Hayward with a personal best 21:48.

Richards at the turn (photo: Fergus Muir)

Chris Womack was second in his age category too, winning the prize with a season’s best 22:35. Esser rode in 22:05 and John Swanbury in 24:20, also a season’s best.

Swanbury at the turn (photo: Fergus Muir)

The scratch winner was Matthew Senter of Peterborough CC in 19:37, with Harley Matthews of Team PedalRevolution second in 19:38 and Richards third.  There was a full field of 120.

Wrentham resident Denise Hurren of Sole Bay Cycle Sport took fourth place in the women’s prizes with a 23:44 PB.  Verity Smith of Stowmarket & District CC was the fastest woman in 22:33.

Esser’s new mark was in Team Swift’s “middlemarkers” time trial on the legendary V718 course, renowned for its fast road and sheltered dual carriageway described by Esser as, “one of the country’s “dragstrips” where personal bests come from.”

He said, “I didn’t fail and pulled out a 39-second improvement on my lifetime best for 10 miles at 21:18 despite the longer return leg being far from easy with a stiff headwind.”

The country’s best rode in a separate event the afternoon on the same course, in which the competition record was equalled by James Gullen (Pedal Heaven) with a 17:20.

Richards also won the VC Baracchi 25-mile championship on Saturday in the Godric CC club 25 on the Earsham course.  Overall he was second to TPR rider Matthews with 55:43 to Matthews’ 54:09 on a distinctly windy and blustery day.

Dennington was pleased to get under the hour in 59:50 for fifth place overall and runner-up in the VCB championship. Chris Womack of VCB recorded 1-03:57.

Chris Womack

Swanbury rode with Ali Banks on the tandem and they found the windy conditions difficult, finishing in 1-00:55.

The tandem

Richards won the Diss & District CC club 10 last Tuesday at Billingford with 21:03 and Dennington came fifth in 22:55. Simon Scott of Anglia Velo was second in 22:11, Lee Shipp of Diss third in 22:16 and Paul Shelly of Diss fourth in 22:41.  31 rode.

In the Gt Yarmouth CC Thursday club 10 at Lound, Richards was third in 22:04, with Dennington fourth in 23:44.  Matthews won this in 21:44, with Zak Coleman, also of TPR, second in 21:56.

In the Mildenhall Rally John Thompson of VCB rode the 203km audax, which took in Gazely, Acton, Diss, Wymondham, Swaffham, Feltwell and West Row, completing it in 11 hours 23 minutes, which he was happy about, saying, “I spent a lot of time at the Acton and Diss controls doing serious eating. It was not a bad day and we were generally lucky with wind direction.”