Hemel Hempstead Cycling Club

Hi Folks,

Tonights event survived the many showers that happened all afternoon - and after the event too, But the couple of hours running up to and during the event were dry. With only a very light breeze and temps around 15ºC it was also a fairly quick night too.

That it was fast was evidenced by the fact that Ross Clarke (Team Milton Keynes) won in a new best time for him on the course - and by a fairly big margin too. Ross did his first 20 minute 10 on the course and joins a select few riders to have done so. Runner up was his dad Steve, but getting on for 2 minutes slower. 3rd place was closely fought out between Paul Caton (Anders Horizon RT) and Philip Murrell (Finsbury Park CC) seperated by just 2 secdonds in Paul's favour. Close behind them was Jonathan Shubert, riding with sore legs after riding back from Brussells yesterday. Yes, Really! Doug Coleman was the best Hemel rider in 6th place.

On handicap you know it is a fast day when 10 of the 17 riders get handicap times faster than the target time of 21 minutes... A more normal day (especially once the handicaps are more 'dialled in' for newer riders, etc. ) would not see many faster at all and most would be just a touch slower.

So best on handicap after not riding for a couple of years was Jody Conibear - kind of continuing the family tradition as both her sister and brother have done well in the handicap competitions before. Jody saw off the next closest by almost a minute with Steve Roff improving by a big margin on last week to come 2nd,  and James Wilson also starting to find the form he had 4 years ago when he last rode (before last week of course). Doug Coleman  is still improving after a good dtart last year and Harvey Bennett is another new rider for this year's tens and is still finding out about the course so will improove further I'm sure.

Tonights event was the first tophy winning opportunity for the club - the Longmarkers trophy is awarded to the fastest club rider who in recent years has not beaten 25 minutes on the club course. This gives the slightly slower riders - or the newer ones finding their feet an opportunity that the faster riders can't win. So unless someone spots and obvious error I think I can declare that Duncan Knight is the winner of the 2010 Longmarkers competion. Duncan managed to fight off Jody Conibear by just under 30 seconds to claim victory. I'm sure that both are quite capable of eliminating themselves from qualifying for next years Trophy race though, but beating 25 minutes at some point this year.

Thanks go to Bob Clark and Dave Rogers for the timekeeping, John Dunne for the pushing and Gavin Atkins, John Lacey and Matt Meadows for the marshalling.

Next weeks marshalling rota is Richard Boley, Rob Hill, Geoff Reynolds and Stuart Turner.

We are still looking for club riders to post theiur race experiences/reports/results on the forum - time trials, road racing, track (yes Gavin!) or anything. There are also threads to say what you are intending in racing over the coming weeks/months/year, plus JD will highlight a few events to use for possible targets for the club to aim for. Click on the forum button above and start posting! The more that do the better it will become for everyone.

Cheers,

Paul