With the 2023 Time Trial season now behind us, please find the following short report on final events of the year from our Racing Secretary Paul. Thanks to organisers, marshals, time keepers, cake bakers and riders for making this all work so well.
The weekend of 30 September / 1 October was a busy one for the club’s time trial community. On the Saturday we ran the Hill Climb on Bowden Hill (UH80) and on the Sunday the 10 mile time trial on the Spine Road to Latton and back near Ashton Keynes (U41).
The hill climb organised by Ian Potts and Simon Cox was again in aid of St Anne’s Church and attracted nearly 40 riders and some members of the Saturday leisure ride also climbed the hill on the promise of cake. The church group had also made a sign to advertise the race.
Paul Winchcombe led off for the club and was pleased to get under 8 minutes once more (and not be last) but was well beaten by Andrew Lockwood (4:58:36) and David English (6:04:59). For those whom have seen Midge’s video, she omitted the offer of a 5 mile time trial next year for the Saturday riders. It is in the calendar (Wednesday 10 April 2024).
The event made £153 for the church and they raised £195 through cake sales.
On the Sunday, we had the 10 Mile Open Time trial which went very well, helped by a warm dry morning although riders commented on the return headwind. No pleasing some people 😊. Again the club turned out to help which is very much appreciated although Paul Winchcombe was not able to race the course as he was signing it out to his usual standard.
For the record, the winner was Steve Cottington at 60+ so hope for everyone, even if he is in Paul’s age group category!
The rest of Sunday was spent watching the National Road Bike Time Trial Championships which was running on the A420 using the Hardriders course. Paul choose to stand at the Tormarton left bend as that is a pretty challenging turn when going downhill and the bend is blind with a very strange set of road marking. We had 3 Chippenham riders in the event Jo Meier, David English and Simon Cox and some may have seen the pictures on Facebook.
The event had a 180 riders across junior, women and men and although there was the odd tractor delay I heard no reports of any incidents and a couple of ladies on shire horses said most riders called out a warning. Pretty much everyone else negotiated the corner with no incident and I took the opportunity to educate drivers and locals who stopped to ask what was going on.
Our thanks of course to Sue who time kept 3 times over the weekend, so had a very long Sunday being at Ashton Keynes for 8 a.m. and then at Marshfield till gone 5 p.m. It is also worth of note that David rode all 3 events over the weekend.
So although the season was pretty much over and the time trialers have moved to Thursday evening Zwift team time trials we still had time to fit in a run out at Thruxton in the DBMax/Pronto event – although not a CTT event as the circuit championships this year are up north at the Croft Circuit. The team came 12
th our of 24 and improved its time from last year by nearly 90 seconds, once again shedding the old man for the last lap.
We were also overtaken at one point by club member Theo Anderson racing in a mixed team looking a little more aero than his elders!
