South West Divisional Champs

Sid Valley

Cycling Club

South West

Divisional

Champions

Pictures courtesy of Richard and Ann Owens

Sunday July the 1^st saw five Sid Valley riders set off for their first ever 50 mile time trial hosted by Plymouth Corinthians. Adrian Clode, Karl Hodson, Nigel Winchester, Douglas Parker and Julian Guy represented the club. The event started at 7:00am on a Sunday morning on the S4/50 course. Two laps on the A38 (Buckfastleigh to Chudleigh and back). The morning started of with strong wind and rain showers, what we seem to now accept as our summer this year with the event being delayed for half an hour hoping for a break in the weather.

A break in the weather presented itself and the event was under way. The objective of the team of five riders was to try and achieve the team prize for the fastest three riders from the same team.

With a tail wind on the way out and trying not to get to carried away too early in the 50 miles the first 12 ½ miles were reasonably easy going but once we hit the turn for the first time we were presented with a head wind for the next 12 ½ miles. At the split times Karl was currently in third spot with Adrian in seventh with Nigel running as are third man for the team of three with Douglas Parker and Julian Guy running strong.

The second 25 miles was much harder as fatigue and the wind started to take its toll on the riders. Karl finished third with Adrian in seventh and looking at the splits times at the HQ it looked like it was all down to Nigel who had a time gap of over two minutes on Douglas. Amazingly Douglas pulled something special out of the bag to claw back the time deficit and beat Nigel by six seconds. These few second were just enough to clinch the third man spot for the Sid Valley CC objective of the team prize.

The Sid Valley club’s first ever 50 miles TT was a very special and memorable day as our objective was achieved, taking the club to dizzy heights by winning the South West Divisional Team Champs . The day hadn’t finished there as Sid Valley scooped ALL the South West Divisional Champs medals in the different categories and all our riders received prizes.

A special mention to Julian who isn’t known for time trialling but for audax riding who did a very creditable time in a very hard event.

South West Divisional Champs July 2007