Richards and He were the VCB stars before Easter

A great week for Velo Club Baracchi included a new club record by Mark Richards at 25 miles and an impressive second place for Lucas He in the Diss CC open 25-mile medium gear event at Bressingham.

Richards, riding in the ever-popular Lea Valley CC open event on the E2 course on A14 and A11 dual carriageways from Newmarket set the new club record at 50:04.

The course is just a little longer than advertised so even riding at an average 30.1mph failed to get Richards under 50 minutes, but he could hardly have been much closer.

Supervet Chris Womack achieved 57:34, which was just 57 seconds slower than his ride in last year’s event.  James Moore was due to ride but suffered a broken leg in a road traffic accident the day before.

The south easterly wind on a sunny day made it slightly harder going out to the turn with a quicker return.

John Dewey of Team Bottrill/HSS Hire won in 45:20 with his team-mate Matthew Smith second in 45:59. The fastest lady was Alice Lethbridge DRAG2ZERO in 52:21.

Lucas He, VCB’s pocket rocket junior rider, was riding in an event where the highest gear allowed is 72 inches, necessitating a fast pedalling style.  The course from Bressingham is on an undulating road to the Thetford roundabout and back.

Lucas He’s on a roll!

Chris Skinner (CS Velosport) won with 1-01:16 and Lucas rode an excellent second in 1-01:43 beating, among others, Geoff Frost of Team VeloVelocity who was third in 1-03:57.

On Tuesday of last week Diss CC’s evening 10-mile cub time trials began and VCB’s Richards won the 40-rider event in 22:04 despite his racing fall of two days before. VCB’s Liam Gentry was second in 22:15 and other VCB times were Paul Dennington 23:19, Lucas He 23:27, John Swanbury 27:02 and (in an excellent first ride) Alex He 28:52.  The third place went to Simon Scott of Anglia Velo in 22:45.

Saturday’s Godric CC club 25-mile time trial in good weather drew out a personal best ride of 22:42 by VCB rider Paul Hayward for second place behind Matt Ratcliffe of Iceni Velo (22:21). Other VCB times were Dennington 22:55, Nick Esser 23:24 and Swanbury 25:53.

Rock Estate times were Mark Saunders 22:40, Oliver Gardiner 23:21, Stuart Chase 24:40 and Jim Keeble 25:19.

A group of riders, some in VCB, rode a 79-mile loop round Framlingham on Sunday.  They were Gentry, Esser, Luke Rowell, Chase, Saunders and Matt Cole.

The VCB 8.30am club run was formed by just three riders, George Kerridge, Nicki Hawkes and Womack and this worked out similarly at 78 miles, taking in Halesworth, Peasenhall, Leiston, Orford and back through Leiston, Blythburgh, Reydon and Wrentham.

On Saturday John Thompson rode the Shaftesbury CC 215km audax.on three loops from Ugley in Essex,.taking 12 hours and 45 minutes and he was fortified for the last loop by beans and toast.