Richards 30-mile champ with Moore runner-up

Richards up close

Mark Richards of Velo Club Baracchi made an assault on the club’s record books with a 1-06:55 ride in the CC Breckland open 30-mile time trial on the A11 road on Sunday.

Not only did it win him the VCB 30-mile championship but Richards’ personal best dramatically overtook Karl Read’s 1998 club record of 1-09:10.

A cheerful James Moore

James Moore gave Richards good opposition and he was pleased with his 1-09:18 result, so near the old record, which beat the target he had set for himself as a personal best.

John Swanbury and Chris Womack set out to continue their friendly rivalry but sadly Womack suffered a puncture while going well at about 12 miles and did not finish.

Swanbury achieved 1-14:51, just inside the 1-15:15 that Womack rode in the same event last year and setting a new club veteran record of +13:32 against his age standard. Womack has another event in October to enter and seek to regain the record.

The fastest rider was Daniel Bloy of Team VeloVelocity with 1-01:36, not so very far off 30mph, from Richard Hancock of St Neots CC 1-03:22 and Steve Gorbutt of Diss CC 1-03:50. Chris Nudds of CC Breckland won the veteran competition with +18:36 from a 1-09:16 ride, Team VeloVelocity won the team prize and the fastest woman was Jennifer Smart of VC Norwich with 1-14:31.

Richards had an uncontested win in VCB’s “Athletes’ Trophy’ event within the Gt Yarmouth CC club 10 using a road bike and no aero gear. Ideally there would have been more than one VCB rider there, competing for this trophy.

Richards’ time on the Lound 8.25-mile course was 20:09. The top ride, with aero gear, was by Harley Matthews of Team Pedal Revolution, in 18:10. Teenager Josh Womack, VCB’s prospective new member, rode in 27:56. It was very windy. He enjoyed it and planned to ride this week as well.

The last Godric CC Tuesday evening 10 of the year at Earsham last week attracted a field of 40 riders, with nine VCB members present.

Keith Wink

Highlights of the event for the club on an overcast night with a light breeze included a personal best 24:19 by Keith Wink in his second ride of the year and a better ride by comeback man Paul Clarke, who took a minute off his previous time to record 26:20

Chris Womack

Richards achieved 22:04 and Moore rode a personal best 22:52. Paul Dennington was on 22:48, George Kerridge 23:47 and Chris Womack 24:41.

Dennington

Swanbury rode the tandem with Kate Churchill and they were off their best form with 24:08, though a mechanical fault may have contributed to how hard the night’s unremarkable conditions felt to be.

Tandem

Keith Wink

The fastest rider was Harley Matthews with 21:09 from Steve Konrad of Gt Yarmouth CC 21:57 and Nick Partridge of Plomesgate CC 21:57, followed by Richards.

Rock Estate times were Simon Asher 22:48, Paul Hayward 23:32 and Jonny Hawkes 23:42.

Kate Churchill has been taking part this week in the 750-mile Paris-Brest-Paris Randonneur and we will report next week on her ride.