Hemel Hempstead Cycling Club

The club 25 was held this morning in superb sunny and warm conditions with not a breath of wind.

The winner was favourite Danny Axford (Arctic Premier RT) with a rather quick for the course 53:22, with Jessie Elzinger (Beeline Bicycles) 2nd well over 2 minutes down with Dave Johnson (VC 10) in 3rd just 22 seconds back. Hemel Hempstead CC's Jody Conibear was the fastest woman with 1:4:30 and she had a similarly big winning margin over over 2 minutes back to Nikki Hunt (VTTA London & Home Counties), with Josephine Perry over a minute and a half further back.

On VTTA standards, Nikki Hunt prevailed over all the men to win with a plus of 17:18 and she had over a minute on Dave Johnson with 3rd placed André Dyson another minute back.

Winning team was the young guys from the Twickenham CC, who overcame a strong showing by the VC10 with less than a minute between them. Hemel came 3rd, sadly suffering from the fact that our fastest rider Gavin Atkins has been ill and DNS.

For the Hemel riders, today they also raced for the Clark trophy for the best Hemel rider on handicap in the 25. The winner was Jody Conibear with a handicap time of 51:30, with Steve Hewitt competing in his first 25 coming 2nd in 54:18. Ian Huntingford put up a strong defence of this trophy finishing in 3rd place in 55:01.

Thanks to the pushers Stewart Boucher and Geoff Reynolds, Marshals Helen Reynolds and Dave Rogers with race organiser John Lacey observing and checking no-one rode through the lights at Waddesden, and of course the timekeeping duties of Bob Clark.Nigel Goffin did canteen duties after his ride too, and was helped with the washing up by Steve Hewitt after he had finished his first 25.

Paul