Evergreen Womack’s 25-mile personal best

Chris Womack of Velo Club Baracchi was delighted to celebrate a lifetime Personal Best in the Shaftesbury Cycling Club “Middle Markers” 25-mile Time Trial based near Newmarket on Saturday. His time of 56:47, an improvement by over a minute, put many riders to shame. Winner was Tom Trimble from CC Ashwell with a 49.59.

Chris Womack in action

George Kerridge of VCB won the Godric Cycling Club 10 on Tuesday at Earsham with a very respectable time of 23:32 considering the bad weather conditions. Paul Read also rode with a time of 27:31.

In the mid-week Lotus Cycling Series based at the Lotus test track in Hethel near Norwich a day later, the bad weather continued and many competitors stayed at home, not for Mark Richards, Nick Esser, James Moore & new member Charles Jones.

Richards, Esser & Moore were always in the mix and although the VCB trio missed the main break of seven riders of the race it made for a hard battle to maintain positioning in the bunch. The 35mph speeds with the wind and 20mph into a block headwind made life difficult for all those involved.

Jones’ debut in the senior race was too much and he retired early in the race. The headwind sprint finish seemed to be slow-motion, top VCB placing was Richards who finished 13^th, gaining him 4^th place in the series with 2 races remaining.

James Moore & Nick Esser rode the Abberton Road Race on Sunday. The 88km race covering just under 8-laps proved to be a fast one. Esser was near the front for the 1st hour trying to get into a potential break but nothing got away for more than a few minutes.

Esser changed with Moore on the hour for him to try & break free in the 2^nd hour of racing but to no avail, 2 riders escaped near the end and they attained a 90 second gap very quickly which was never to be retrieved.

At the end Moore was poorly positioned in the sprint and came in at 13^th place with Esser just inside the top-10 with 9^th place bagging a couple more racing points to his name and a bit of prize money too.

John Thompson of VCB rode the Nearly Stonehenge 189km Audax  in Surrey on Sunday visiting Whitchurch, Wildhern, Ludgershall, Alresford and Elstead on the way.

Thompson added, “The route included a lot of tough Surrey hills on a warm day and I completed it in around 12 hours”.

VCB riders John Cooper, Mike Wood, Tim Revell, Keith Wink and Mike Rainton

More locally, VCB Veterans Mike Wood, Mike Rainton, Keith Wink & Tim Revell rode the Norwich 100 covering a scenic route around North Norfolk. Paul Read also rode the event which started and finished in the Norwich Cathedral grounds.

Thanks to Nick for this report!