French joy for Forest pair (From Kidderminster Shuttle)

French joy for Forest pair

2:00pm Friday 12th October 2012 in Sport

TANDEM titans Chris Morris and Phil Hunt recorded an impressive victory at the prestigious Dou Normand end of season time trial in France.

The Wyre Forest CRC pair finished the 54.3-kilometre course, which goes around the town of Marigny in Normandy, in a time of one hour, 15 minutes eight seconds.

This year’s race, which is for both amateur and professional riders, attracted an entry of more than 400 teams from all over the world.

Morris and Hunt had previously raced as a two-up, but this year decided to ride in the tandem race and with weather conditions considerably better than last year their confidence was high.

The first part of the course was fast and the duo went through the first 10 miles under 20 minutes.

Through the next section, which was exposed and prone to wind, and the following hilly section they maintained their early effort and returned to Marigny in 57.30.

Despite being held up in the final leg, Hunt and Morris were still riding strongly and completed the undulating course three minutes ahead of closest rivals Guernsey Velo Club duo Graeme Le Meatre and Andy Le Page who had won this testing event for the last two years.

This was a fitting end to their season which has seen them unbeaten in all their tandem races.