Richards smashes VCB club record for 10 miles

Mark Richards’ run of cycling form has continued unabated, with a personal best and club record on his birthday with third place in the CC Breckland open 10 between Attleborough and the Snetterton turn on the A11.

Richrds setting off (photo by Fergus Muir)

His time of 19:56 was the first sub-20-minute ride in the club and a big improvement on Liam Gentry’s 20:35 club record, ridden in 2011.

James Moore also had a great ride, with 21:41 and Chris Womack also showed what the club’s best veteran can do with his sound result, 23:16.

John Swanbury and Ali Banks rode the tandem to a personal best for the duo of 21:47. The fastest team there, David McGaw of Cambridge CC and Iain Dawson of CC Breckland set off a minute behind and overhauled the VCB riders towards the end of their ride, to record 20:26.

The solo winner was Harley Matthews of Team Pedal Revolution in 19:28 and second was Ryan Morley of RAF CA with 19:32.

Richards went on to take the silver medal in the East District CA 25-mile time trial near Wisbech on Sunday with 53:18, as second-fastest rider in the district.  Moore backed this up with 56:12 and was 14^th overall.

The overall fastest was out-of-district Felix Barker of Cambridge University CC with 50:36 (course record), followed by Charles Nurse of North Norfolk Wheelers in 52:28 (the district winner), Ed Porteus of St Neots CC (also not a district club) in 52:51 and then Richards.

Chris Nudds of CC Breckland won the veteran category with 58:32, which gave him a veteran “plus” of 14:12 against his age standard and the fastest lady was Jennifer Smart of VC Norwich in 1-00:34.

Richards said, “It was a shame the wind picked up on the second lap. There’s nowhere to hide, it’s as flat as a pancake!”

In the Thursday Gt Yarmouth CC 10 Richards with 22:16 was second to Harley Matthews (21:16) with Liam Gentry of VCB third in 22:46. Moore was fifth in 23:20, behind fourth man Steve Konrad of the home club (22:47).  VCB’s Paul Dennington was seventh in 24:25 and Womack was tenth in 25:52. Twenty-four rode.  Nick Esser did not finish.

Gentry and Esser rode the Gt Yarmouth club’s 30-mile time trial on Sunday, with Gentry second in 1-09:33 to Matthews’ 1-07:23 and Esser fifth in 1-14:55. Jenny Anderson who rides for Gt Yarmouth but is also a VCB member recorded 1-24:39 and was fastest lady.

Eight VCB members rode to Southwold for the start of the Aviva Women’s Tour.  Five of them led the tour through Southwold for the first kilometre before the tour then set off towards Norwich.

They stopped at Brampton and Bungay to see the event and then headed to Norwich for the finish.  There were plenty of spectators at both stop off points and the finish.

VCB riders were joined by Sole Bay Cycle Sport for some of the ride and Rock Estate for the whole ride and they rode 80 miles in total.

John Thompson took a 75-mile ride that included Blythburgh, Snape and Wickham Market.