Briercliffe 10 – 13 August 2019

Promoted for and on behalf of Cycling Time Trials – Under its rules and regulations.

Event Sec & Time keeper: Leanne Cutler
Assistant Time Keeper: Frank Turner
Props: Nick Hickman (TSE) and Julian Pegg
Reporter: Andy Saunders
Club TT Sec: Julian Pegg

This event used the 1U/10B “Roadworks 10” course.

Hitchin Nomads Competition

Women: Emily Varley 27.21; Ingrid Matthews 27.24; Catherine Jones 28.02

Men: Andy Saunders 23.51; Mark Desborough 24.08; Paul Abraham 24.30; Martin Scott 25.11; Andrew Hardy 25.31; Chris Batt 25.36; Nigel Tooke 25.59; Ross Thomson 26.03; Mark Loosely 28.11; John Curtin 27.00; Roger Taylor 28.09; Stephen Oliver 28.37; Paul Riley 29.13; Russell Plunkett 29.25; Chris Corney 31.01; Richard Bland 31.39; David Heath 32.25

Private Time Trials

Jason Stuart (Team Salesengine.co.uk) 22.45; Ade Gower (Beds Road CC) 23.18; Jim McConnel 23.45; Mick Case (Beds Road RT) 24.48; Gustav Woudberg 26.50

Andy Saunders’ Reflections on the Event

On a beautiful, mild Tuesday evening the last Club 10 of the main season was held.  There was a particularly good turn out of 25 riders and an equally good turn out at the pub afterwards. Big thanks to everyone who contributed to arranging the series this year.

The breeze was a westerly. Most people seemed content with their efforts although I suspect that Ross Thomson and John Curtin will have been a little frustrated not to have gone just a few seconds quicker. Time trialling comes with many such small frustrations!

Special kudos from myself to Chris Batt for riding 25.36 on a standard bike.  He wasn’t sure if that was good or not but I said it definitely was. The fastest ride on the night was by Jason Stuart from TSE and CC Ashwell with a 22.45 – chapeau for that one. The main contest of the evening was won by Emily Varley who rode three seconds faster than Ingrid Matthews.

Personally, I rode exactly the same time as the previous week but I was happier with my time as the wind was less favourable (you need a bit more southerly in the mix). As we know, many riders will use one tool or another, like power meters or heart rate monitors. This time I just used average speed: any average over 25 mph for the race would give me sub-24 minute time. It went like this… start (first mile) average below 25 mph…. hit the big down hill…average goes up to over 28 mph… by the end of Growers average was 26.2 mph. The task then is not to loose too much in the final hardest section of the course. By the final corner out of Old Warden my average had dropped to 24.9 but it ended up at 25.1 mph. Job done.  I have one other random observation. When I was looking at Strava after the race, to see what was going on segment by segment, I noticed an anomaly; Thomas Robb was quicker that Jason in the final 1.3 mile segment. He should have been racing!

And that is the end of another fabulous set of club evening Time Trials.

Other Numbers

Here are some other facts and figures about the Tuesday evening series that might be of interest.  Just Club Members are being counted here:

  • 42 have ridden a Tuesday evening event in 2019 (approx. 25% of the membership)
  • 17 have assisted in the running of the series (TK, Prop, Event Sec, Reporter, etc.)
  • 2 have ridden the most – 12 times each
  • 2 have assisted the most – 14 times each

Next Event

Inter Club Hill Climb on “Sharpenhoe Clappers”.  To be hosted by St Neots CC on Sunday 29 September at 10:30.