Titch battles the wind in the NABC 10 and a tale of tandems

Mark “Titch” Richards rode the best Velo Club Baracchi time in the Norwich Amateur Cycling Club 10 on the A143 on Saturday.

Titch is waiting for the new VCB kit! It’s promised for next season, if not before!

A challenging windy afternoon greeted riders and the somewhat longer outward leg from the western end to Clays’ roundabout was made tough by the headwind.

As always, when the headwind is suffered on the longer leg there is not enough road on the tailwind return to make up for it.

Richards’ time was 23:02. It was a somewhat slower ride than his best and he was a little disappointed.

George Kerridge took exactly one minute more, with a 24:02 result. Other VCB times were Ali Banks 25:28, John Swanbury 26:25 and John Thompson 27:49.

Ali Banks comes into view

Ali Banks near the finish of his solo ride

Swanbury and Banks were on their second ride of the afternoon, as they had first ridden the tandem in 23:06.

There were three tandems in competition with each other, but the other two teams were father and son combinations, with quite small youngsters as the stokers, so the VCB duo were hardly entitled to savour their victory.

Rather they were glad to see each of the young lads taking such pleasure in taking part with his dad and the VCB team were glad there was a second prize available for one of them to win.

The second tandem was ridden by Steve and Ben Robinson of Team Salesengine in 25:35, a personal best for them. Third were John Appleby and John Appleby Jnr of API Metrow Essex Utilities in 26:21.

As one of the dads said afterwards about the youngsters’ participation, “They love it and it is an amazing way to connect with them.”

In the solo event the fastest rider was Daniel Bloy of Team VeloVelocity.co.uk with 21:29 from Godric CC’s James Trenchard 21:40 and Matthew Eley of Ely and District CC 22:16.

The best veteran was Ron Back of West Suffolk Wheelers CC, whose 25:46 actual time at age 75 was a veteran “plus” of +4:21 (as his age-related standard is 30:07 and he beat it by that amount, called a plus). He was run closest by Phil Hargreaves of VC Norwich +4:12 and Edmund Spurgeon of Colchester Rovers CC +4:09.

Jenny Anderson and Ali Banks

Jenny Anderson of Gt Yarmouth CC, who is also a VCB member, was the clear ladies’ winner with 26:52. There was a tie for second place in 27:21 behind her, Alice Leclercq of Manchester Wheelers and Gillian Reynolds of Willesden CC.

John Thompson rode the Eagle Road Club Hilly 45 on Sunday on minor and B roads over some of Essex’s best or worst hills, depending on one’s viewpoint.

From the start near Ugley riders shortly meet a great hill to Henham and ride to Thaxted, to start four laps of a circuit via Howlett End and Debden, the final one being slightly shorter, finishing just before Debden Green. Thompson achieved 2-32:03 and was satisfied with it. David McGaw (Cambridge CC) won in 1-44:03.