News & Features

Early season events continued to benefit from good weather and excellent conditions for time trialling, with course records being broken and top performances in events across the country last weekend.

For the second weekend in a row Megan Dickerson (Bristol South CC) powered to new women’s course records, this time breaking the old mark in the Salt and Sham CC 10 in Gloucestershire following on from the record she broke it the Frome and District Wheelers 10 a fortnight ago.

But Dickerson wasn’t the first rider to break the women’s course record for the U102 near Rangeworthy. Lauren Creamer (Brotherton Cycles) broke the record around six minutes before Dickerson lowered it further.

Meanwhile, RAF CA rider Jon Gates was fastest male in the Salt and Sham 10, clocking 20-32 to win by 22 seconds.

But the good weather didn’t just bring out time trial riders – there were also road workers in hi-viz vests causing problems for two events.

The North Road CC hardriders 25 had to be cut to 21.2 miles because of roadworks on the F7/25 course based near Brookman’s Park in Hertfordshire.

And in Staffordshire, the Severn Road Club 25 was reduced in length to 12.3 miles because of temporary traffic lights on the U17 course near Stone.

Nevertheless, the events both saw some strong rides across the categories.

Ollie Jones (ActiveEdge RT) was fastest male in the North Road CC hardriders, clocking 47-36 to win by 1-48 from 2017 winner Lloyd Chapman (Plomesgate CC), while the fastest female was Amy Pritchard (Giant Camden Team Liv) whose time of 1-01-16 was 40 seconds better than runner-up Elizabeth Marvelly (Liv AWOL).

The reduced distance of the Severn Road Club event on Sunday also did little to dent the enthusiasm of the riders or the performances. Felix Wilkinson (VC Montpellier) was fastest in 25-42, while Nick Livermore (Bristol South CC) was eight seconds off in second.

Joanne Jago (Performance Cycles) was quickest woman, while in the two-up event the University of Bristol CC pairing of Kate Mactear and Josie Rawes took the win with 28-34.

24 Hours after his win in the Salt and Sham 10, Jon Gates (RAF CA) was victorious again, this time teaming up with Robert Willcocks to clock 25-05 and win the two-up event by 1-22.

Elsewhere, there was a tie in the Rossendale RC hilly 11-mile event on Saturday, with Fraser Martin (Saint Piran) and Richard Bideau (Pendle Forest CC) both clocking 23-42 to share the spoils of victory, while Jan Scotchford (North Lancashire RC) was fastest woman in a time of 30-35.

Also on Saturday, the Chester Road Club hilly 14 was won by Graham Kemp (Team Bottrill) in 30-09, just one second faster than Tom Brazier (Synergy RT). And the women’s prize went to two-time national 12-hour champion and former national record holder Jill Wilkinson (Chester RC) in 36-40.

* All reports are copyright of Cycling Time Trials/Snowdon Sports. Not to be used without permission.

* See the individual event listings for more detailed reports on these and other time trials.