Fibrax Fenwicks Wrexham Cycling Club 24

Covering the course in exactly one hour, David Fellows (Solihull CC) was victorious in the Fibrax Wrexham Road Club 24-mile hilly time trial on the Horseshoe Pass near Ruthin, Denbighshire, on Sunday.

Ideal weather conditions and a strong field helped make for some strong performances, none more so than Fellow’s time of one hour which gave him overall victory by 2-49 from Ben Goodwin (Fibrax Wrexham RC), while Ben Goodfellow (Fibrax Wrexham RC) was 4-26 behind Fellows in third.

“It’s the third consecutive year I’ve won this race,” said Fellows. “The first year was the 32-mile version and it was in September. After entering that on a whim I was hooked and the 24-mile version suits me better.

“This year the wind was blowing us out rather than home so was a headwind up the drag through Nant y garth which did scrub some speed off but I just rode to power and did enough on the way out and the initial climb to come away with the win.”

In-form Wahoo-Le Col rider Frances Owen was fastest female overall despite riding a road bike, her time of 1-13-24 being over seven minutes quicker than second fastest female Gwyneth Parry (Stolen Goat RT) who was also on a road bike.

Port Sunlight Wheelers’ Penny Thorn was third female with 1-21-54.

The host club Fibrax Wrexham Road Club were team winners with Goodwin and Goodfellow being joined in the victorious trio by Mark Jones with 1-08-17.

There were some strong performances throughout the veterans categories too.

Fastest 40-49 was Barry Murphy (Graham Weigh Deeside Olympic) with 1-07-51, while Kevin Larmer (Port Sunlight Wheelers) was top 50-59 rider with 1-08-58.

Jan Kardasz (Fibrax Wrexham Road Club) covered the course in 1-18-57 to finish as fastest 60-69 rider, while the over-70s prize went to Ian Casson (Birkenhead Victoria CC) with 1-44-33.

Fellows’ victory was his fourth of the season, having also won the Derwentside CC 40, the Kent Valley RC hill-climb of Shap and the Banbury Star CC 23.5-mile event.

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