We’ve had the following race report in from Mike Sirett who completed the Frank & Joy Sheppard Memorial 10 Mile Time Trial at the weekend
On Saturday 30th October Kettering CC hosted The Frank and Joy Sheppard Memorial 10 miles individual and 2 up Time Trial on the Lamport – Rothwell – Lamport course. After being advertised on the website 3 WVCC teams turned up on the start line to have a go having been proceeding by many weeks of light hearted banter. The teams were John Abbot + Mike Sirett, and Stuart Haycox + Milly Pinnock. Peter Bell from the club was in a team but unfortunately his partner did not turn up. There were 12 teams in total with 5 teams such as ourselves on Road Bikes.
We weren’t going to win with super George Fox on a TT Bike but for some extra spice we’d be racing for a goodie bags of Mike’s creation for the fastest WVCC team, with such a grand prize on offer current form was observed on last week’s Hill Climb and there wasn’t too much difference to be honest so it was all up for grabs.
Upon arrival at the sign on, we all helped each other with pinning numbers on jerseys, and one participant in particular heard to utter “Bend over… that looks lovely”. Anyhow, down to brass tacks, John and I warmed up trying to keep away from Milly and Stuart so as not to give anything way. We had had a few practices as a team before and did the course on an awful wet day recently so were pretty sure that we knew the course better than the Twins, but alas, on the start line, Mike Deely from the Rocko and second claim WVCC, gave Stuart all the know-how on the course so we lost that advantage. Stu did pass it on to us, so through gritted teeth I said thanks.
Milly and Stuart went off first and for what seemed like a long 2 minutes later off we went. We got into our stride on the long uphill to the Harrington bend and were quite smooth on our changeovers. We were really flying down the hill to the Rothwell roundabout turn and I was really happy when I realised that we were gaining on Stuart and Milly. I did wonder on the uphill back whether we had blown up but as anyone whom has done that course will tell you, it’s a hard 2.5 miles on the hill back up to Harrington then when you get back up you hit the wind. The last 2 miles back down to Lamport was trying to get some real speed back and then we hit the 3 dips which suck your speed out. We hit the turn back to the finish just about done in.
We met up with Stuart and Milly after the finish and rode back to the sign on together to see what the times were.
- Stuart and Milly did 27.17, winning £30 prize money and giving Milly her best performance of the season
- John and I did 26.38, winning the mini dual on the day and securing winter-long bragging right
- George Fox & Fabos Young won the overall race with 21.39 have just won the solo 10mile TT with a time of 20.35
- Loz Cox also participated in the solo 10mile TT achieving 25.52.
After we had got our times we had a pleasant beverage in the pub up the road and all said we thoroughly enjoyed it and it would be good for the club to run a few 2 ups next year.
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