Mark Saunders rides well at Lound

VC Baracchi’s Mark Saunders took second place with 23:45 in Gt Yarmouth CC’s club 10 at Lound.

Other VCB times were Paul Dennington, fourth in 24:50, Stuart Chase fifth in 25:35 and Richard Allen 30:44.  The winner was Brian Yates of Carrick CC in 22:54 and the fastest GYCC rider was Stephen Dixon-Grant in 24:40.

In Godric CC’s 10-mile club time trial at Earsham last week Paul Hayward of VCB shaved a second off his time of the previous week, finishing third in 22:20.

Lucas He and his father Alex He had ridden out to the event with less aero equipment than usual and recorded 23:00 and 26:07 respectively. Paul Dennington was only 61 seconds slower than Lucas with 24:01 and Paul Reed achieved 25:53.

Paul Reed (Photos by Dominic Austrin)

On the tandem, John Swanbury and Ali Banks finished in 23:36.

The tandem

The fastest rider was VCB member Mark Richards riding for his first claim club Dap CC, who was pleased with a course best 20:20 that put some of those who mentioned the unhelpful crosswind to shame.

There were 27 riders in all. The second-fastest was D Blackburn of VC Norwich in 22:06.

Keith Wink of VCB rode the Norwich 100 sportive and separately a VCB group comprising Mark Gooch, Mike Rainton, Mike Wood and John Cooper also rode.

Wink said, “I rode the first 25 miles solo then managed to get into a good group riding “through and off.”

The route was north-east from Norwich to Walcott on the coast then west along the coast to Holkham and then down south east to Norwich.  Winks said that this ended being just short of 96 miles and was very stop-start in places, completed by him in four and a half hours at 21.2mph.

VCB members Mark Saunders, Paul Wright and Matt Cole took part with fellow Lowestoft riders from Rock Estate Ray Knights, Chris Knights and Alan Revell in the Tour of Cambridgeshire Chrono + Gran Fondo and had a great time amongst the 8,000 or so cyclists who took part in this festival of events.

John Thompson rode to Red Lodge to check over a proposed route for another ‘200’ audax he is planning.

His route included Rumburgh, Metfield, Fressingham and Thorton Magna on the first stretch and he investigated some unfamiliar territory on little lanes after Walsham le Willows

At 67 miles Thompson enjoyed an all day breakfast at the Red Lodge café and rode part of the return journey, another 20 miles to Brandon Station for a return railway journey.