Richards secures a seventh place at Stowmarket’s road race

Mark Richards of Velo Club Baracchi achieved another top ten finish, riding in the Stowmarket & District CC Mid Suffolk Road Race on Sunday.

Richards in the lead, with Joe Skipper and Lewis Pendle following

The race for categories 3 and 4 was over eight laps of the 6.3-mile circuit. After he had gone in an earlier break that was stopped by the race director because of a wide load on the course, the bunch allowed Richards, Joe Skipper of Strada Sport and Lewis Pendle of Iceni Velo to regain some time after the restart.

After a short while they were joined by eight other riders and they worked together for many laps. With a few to go Skipper and Lewis broke free and stayed away for the remainder of the race. The rest of the break slowly whittled down to 6 riders who fought for the lesser points.

Lewis won with Skipper a close second and Rob Ormond of the promoting club third, while Richards managed to hold on for seventh place, with prize money that went down to 10th place.

Riders taking the two-up option in last week’s penultimate Godric CC evening 10-mile time trial, included VCB’s Richards and Liam Gentry, who dominated in 21:35. George Kerridge rode with Paul Hayward of Rock Estate to achieve 22:35.

Solo riders included Paul Clarke of VCB, making a comeback ride after four years out of competition with 27:20. The fastest solo rider Simon Scott of Anglia Velo with 22:22.

John Swanbury and Kate Churchill rode the tandem, looking to improve on their times and they duly set a new club mixed tandem record of 23:32.

Swanbury went on to ride the tandem with Ali Banks in the VTTA East Anglian Group open 25 on the E2 course at Newmarket on Sunday, where the gained a new personal best, club record and East Anglian Group age record for age 64, the average of their ages, with a time of 54:23, more than four and a half minutes quicker than their previous best.

The other tandem in the event was quicker, ridden by Don Saunders and his 17-year-old grandson Declan Davies. They achieved 51:58.

The fastest solo rider was 41-year-old Jonathan Parker of PMR@ToachimHouse with 48:57. This was very fast but 85-year-old Peter Horsnell of Chelmer CC won on veteran standard times with a “plus” of 18:35 from his 1-08:20 actual time and beat Parker’s +17:16.

In Saturday’s VTTA EA open 10 from the Wortwell/Redenhall end of the Waveney Valley course on the A143, Richards was one of the two seniors in the event, recording 22:20 as a leg-loosener for his road race the following day.

Chris Womack achieved 24:52 for a veteran plus of 3:50 and said he was was troubled by his back. Most riders described the wind as “all over the place.” Eddie Fone of Norwich ABC defied at 88 years earned a new East Anglian Group age record with 35:46.

Mark Arnold of CC Desiragear was fastest with 21:25 and 77-year-old Len Benton of Colchester Rovers CC won the veteran award with +5:16 from his 25:24 ride.

In the Gt Yarmouth CC 8.25-mile time trial last Thursday the times included Richards 19:16 for second place, Paul Dennington 22:02, Richard Allen 25:12 and, from the new generation, Josh Womack 27:20. Harley Matthews of Team PedalRevolution won in 18:40.