A pre-Christmas ride

On Sunday there were four Velo Club Baracchi riders on the 8.30am club run and they went out to Langley via Ilketshall St Andrew, Bungay and Ditchingham, returning through Haddiscoe and St Olaves.

At Langley they had coffee and cake in the new coffee shop at “In a Spin” cycles.

Taking part were Alex and Lucas He, Paul Reed and John Swanbury and they rode just over 40 miles at an average of just over 15mph.

The open road

The faster group of members and friends comprised Liam Gentry, Mark Richards, Charles Jones, Lee Cook and Nick Esser, who set our earlier, heading through Mutford, Beccles, Bungay, Loddon, Rockland & then to Whitlingham, expecting to meet Joe Skipper.

Skipper hadn’t received the message in time to be there so they carried on to Stoke Holy Cross, Hempnall, Alburgh, Flixton, Bungay, Beccles & Henstead before turning for home, to make up just under 73 miles.

With pre-Christmas celebrations going on, Esser said some of them were “nursing hangovers from Friday night at the Rock Estate Christmas party” and another from a more recent heavy night so a fast pace wasn’t expected but they managed just under 19mph nonetheless.

Two VCB Under 10 riders competed in the Push Sport Cyclo-Cross in Round 15 of the Eastern Cyclo-Cross League at St Felix School in Southwold.

Ewan Harbord covered more ground in the event than his younger brother Samuel.  The winner, Oskar Everett of Stowmarket & District CC, covered three laps in 10:23, with Ewan Harbord in 20^th place, just eight seconds short of completing two laps.

Samuel rode as well as he could and was seven places further down the order. Ewan and Samuel’s father, Patrick was the VCB team manager and coach for the day.

Tim Bonnett of Push Sport, who used to ride cyclo-cross very ably for VCB, remains connected with the VCB through the provision of its website and his two children Emily and Tess were also in the event, riding for Push Sport.  They finished 23^rd and 25^th.

For somewhat older riders than these youngsters, the next event to include VCB members will be the CC Breckland open 10-mile time trial on New Year’s Day.  Though it is very much out of season and a special event, the competition will be fairly intense.

After the club’s top veteran Chris Womack’s recent 70^th birthday it will be his first opportunity to ride with the more favourable veteran standard time for that age and, no doubt, beat his standard by more than in previous similar events.

Other club riders have entered but at the time of writing the start sheets with all the details are still awaited.