Personal bests all round for Velo Club Baracchi riders

Personal bests in two events for father and son Chris and Mark Womack, Mark “Titch” Richards, George Kerridge and Paul Dennington in another event marked a successful week for Velo Club Baracchi riders.

In Saturday’s Geri Lang Memorial Trophy East Anglian VTTA Group 25-mile time trial on the A14 and A11 from Newmarket Chris Womack took another four seconds off his ride of the other week for 58:01 and Kerridge lowered his best to 57:12.

Not to be outdone, the VCB club secretary Nicki Hawkes, riding for Team VeloVelocity, also secured a personal best, so near going under the hour with 1-00:08.

John Dupen was the quickest of them all with 57:04.  Local riders Mark Newnham and Brian Davies of Anglia Velo achieved 58:35 and 58:53 respectively.

All these were the achievements of veteran riders, and so were fairly remarkable as some are getting quicker and quicker when logic seems to dictate that they ought to be slowing down.

In the moderate to fresh south westerly wind, which made the outward leg hard but helped a lot on the return leg the winning time was 50:20 by Rob Young of Team Vision Racing, with Mark Arnold of CC Desiragear  second in 50:59 and Peter Balls of St Ives CC third in 51:21.  The winning lady was Helen Reynolds (Hemel Hempstead CC) 54:49.

Titch Richards and Mark Womack’s personal bests came in Sundays 30-mile Gt Yarmouth event on the Somerleyton circuit, postponed from a few weeks ago and in which only four rode.

Richards’ 1-14:15 was an excellent time and with it he won not only the event but also the VC Baracchi 30-mile championship. Mark Womack’s new PB was 1-22:10.

The rain made cornering tricky for them and for Gt Yarmouth’s two riders, Phil Denby 1-16:46 and Ian Sandall 1-14:15 but the air was still. Chris Womack chose not to ride but regretted it.

Paul Dennington had a sparkling ride in the Norwich ABC open 10-mile time trial on the A143 from the western end, breaking into the big time with a time of 22:39 for 3rd place overall and second vet on standard out of a field of fifty-two riders.

The return leg was with a head wind which was very hard especially on the resurfaced part of the road near Clays.

Charlie Nurse of North Norfolk Wheeler Declan Davis of CC Breckland won in 21:24 from Angus Jardine of Ipswich BC 52:21 and Dennington. There were no other VCB riders.

Earlier last week in the Diss CC time trial on the undulating and challenging A1006 from Bressingham to Thetford and back, Dennington and Richards both achieved personal bests at the 25-mile distance.

Dennington dipped under the hour with 59:50 for fourth place and Richards came near with 1-00:23 for fifth.  John Swanbury recorded 1-05:21 and was tenth out of the 20 riders.  Jim Burgess of Anglia Velo dominated with 54:53.

Dennington also took second place in the Gt Yarmouth CC 10 at Somerleyton on Thursday with 23:16 for second place behind Stuart Pryce of Strada Sport 22:11.Richards achieved 23:55 for fourth place and mark Womack was seventh with 24:45. 18 rode.