Phil in wheely great shape
10:30am Friday 25th July 2008
PHIL Blacker produced a superb effort against the clock to finish in third place in the Coventry CC 10-mile time trial at Princethorpe on Saturday.
The Wyre Forest Cycle Racing Club ace crossed the line in an impressive time of 21 minutes 20 seconds.
Teammate Lorenzo Buratti was also in his best form ever to record a new personal best time of 22-34 for the distance and was rewarded with second prize in the handicap competition.
National veteran cyclo cross champion Joe Rowe was in action in the fifth round of the Percy Stallard LVRC Veterans Road Race series over four laps of a testing 15-mile course near Peterborough on Sunday.
In a National Championship standard field, the racing was fast, with a number of riders attacking to try and break clear of the bunch, but every one was chased and caught, such was the quality and speed of the following riders.
The fast pace meant the race ended in the inevitable sprint for the line with 20 riders contesting the uphill finish with Rowe showing a good turn of speed to take 11th place overall and sixth in his age category.
Ron Clews rode his first event for Wyre Forest on Sunday when he lined up for the Warwickshire RC 25-mile individual time trial.
The event attracted a field of 64 riders and was held on the fast Evesham bypass course.
The riders were rewarded with dry and sunny conditions with a little breeze and Clews put in a superb effort to keep a steady tempo and finish well inside the hour with an excellent 59-24.
David Prior made a return to racing afetr a four-week lay-off and finished the course in 1 hour 12-30. Overall winner was Bill Moore (Shorter/Rochford Racing Team) with a time of 52.41.
Blacker continued his run of good form when he rode to victory in the latest round of the club events competition on the hilly 14-mile Astley circuit on Tuesday evening.
He crossed the line in a time of 32-47 followed by the previous week’s winner Lorenzo Buratti who had to settle for second place with 34-56. Jon Howard rode strongly to finish third with 36-10.
Other times were Dave Wood 37-23, Ian Connolly 37-55, Joe Rowe 38-09, Andy Overton 38-33, Brian Clarke 40-01, Phil Hunt 40-12, David Briggs 40-29, John Smith 40-56, Ruth Finney 41-20, Jonathan Higgins 42-18, Andy Cotterill 42-54, Ian Wall 44-20, Louise Rotheram 46-15, James Plant 48-17.