Hemel Hempstead Cycling Club

Hi folks,

Well we all rode in brilliant sunshine... but all got soaked. We got soaked from the very wet roads from the rain that had fallen for the hour or two before the event - it was even a bit showery in the few minutes just before the start. But right on cue the sun came out and rainbows appeared. I had promised everyone it would be fine despite the rain when I arrived at the HQ - I had looked at a website that shows the rain radar across the country and that showed the rain band overhead was the last of the showers coming from the north and it was all clear after that. However the rain had cooled the temperatures somewhat - no more than about 14ºC. And the wind blowing the clouds south also meant it was tough on the outward leg of the course - it was very treacle like with the water to slosh through too! Times reflected the harder conditions with most 20 or more seconds from expected.

Fastest on the night was John Lacey, although he only had just over a handful of seconds on JD who in turn had a similar gap on Philip Murrell (Finsbury Park CC). A more distant 4th was Domonic Chapman (Tuff Fitty Tri) and he had another similar gap to 5th placed Ian Baynes with Stuart Turner a dozen seconds back trying to keep up the pressure to maintain his lead in the points competition.

On handicap one of the few who seemed to have not noticed the tougher conditions and actually did a PB was Ian Baynes. Showing just how hard it was, he had a huge gap on the regular riders of this year (considering that the whole point of handicapping is that we should all be ending up at the same time!). However in 2nd place was a rider who hasn't ridden for a couple of years so a bit difficult for the handicapper to keep tabs on - Chris Grange. Chris had over a quarter of a minute in hand on Steve Roffe in 3rd place. Just to show that the handicapper does get thing almost right, the 3rd to 6th placed riders had just 7 seconds separating them. Missing out on 3rd by just 1 seconds was John Lacey, and 3 seconds slower was Duncan Knight in 5th place who had another 3 seconds in hand over Paul Thomson.

On the points situation, Stuart Turner still has the lead, but is being hunted down by John Lacey who has the opportunity to gain bigger points as he has done only 8 events to Stuart's 11, with the riders best 10 scores to count. John is just 13 points back. the last podium position is even closer - Andy Murray has a 2 point advantage over Ian Baynes, with both having ridden 9 events, so next weeks event looks like it will be an exciting finalé to that competition. On handicap points Steve Roffe holds an 18 point advantage over Ian Baynes, but Steve has done 13 events so has to drop lower scores to gain more as opposed to Ian with 9 scores... and having got a great momentum in not finishing lower than 3rd in the last 8 events he has ridden, with half of those being wins. 3rd place Stuart Turner is safe as he can't be caught (and he can't catch the top 2 either).

Thanks go to Bob Clark for the timekeeping, Dave Rogers for the pushing and Ian Huntingford and Grahame Freeman for the marshalling. Next week Giles Haley, Jonathan James, Simon North and Geoff Reynolds are the marshals for the last of the evening events.

Don't forget we start at 7pm otherwise we haven't got enough light to ride in!

I'm still looking for volunteers to go and help at Hillingdon on Saturday 21 August as a part of the rota of clubs helping to run the weekly events at the circuit. We need people to be there for early lunchtime (before noon) to help with signing on, plus then to help at the finish line (lap board and back-up manual finish scorers). A couple of hours in the sun.

Paul