A Hayward and Dennington duel at Billingford

The last duel of the evening club time trial season of the year between Paul Hayward and Paul Dennington of Velo Club Baracchi was conclusively won by Paul Hayward.

His 21:27 time in the Diss CC 10-mile event at Billingford eclipsed Dennington’s 22:40.

Dennington

Hayward turned 40 this year to join Dennington in the veteran category and they are sufficiently evenly matched for the result of their duels this year to go either way, though Hayward was on fire this time.

Second-claim VCB member Mark Richards, riding for DAP CC, was fastest of all with 20:24, with Simon Scott of Anglia Velo second in 21:27 and Lee Shipp of the home club third in 21:38.

Hayward was fourth and Tom Fitzpatrick of Strada Sport fifth in 22:25, while Dennington’s sixth place time was equalled by Trevor Banham of Diss CC.

John Swanbury and Ali Banks of VCB rode the tandem in 23:27. The event attracted 22 riders in all.

Richards is the current Eastern Road Race League circuit race champion and earlier this month the points he has won moved him up to first category in road racing.

Dennington went on to take second place in the Gt Yarmouth CC 10-mile club event at Lound, with 23:40 behind Harley Matthews of DAP CC, who won convincingly in 21:30.

Johnathan Lincoln of the home club took third place in 24:37 and there were 14 riders in all.

John Thompson reported that he rode the Festival Randonee 200, part of Mildenhall CC’s annual rally.

The ride started at West Row, near Mildenhall village hall and took him to Gazeley (17 km), Acton (48 km), Diss (98 km’s), Wymondham, (122 km), Swaffham (157 km), Feltwell (182 km) and back to West Row (203km).

He said, “I finished in 12 hours 3 minutes so just very minimally outside my target.  I was sort of pleased and annoyed about that because if I hadn’t done a bit off-route I would have been inside.”

He said the riders were generally lucky with wind direction and he was pleasantly surprised not to find that stage as tough as he feared.

Thompson extolled the reviving effect of energy drinks from a sweet shop in Wymondham but said that despite these the long gradual climb of nearly 7.5 miles between Shipdham and Swaffham still felt like a col.