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Please find the results attached. It was a beautiful sunny morning—10 to 13 degrees, with only a light north‑easterly breeze—making for very pleasant conditions for a record field of 20 riders, with 19 starting and all finishing.
The course surface has definitely deteriorated, no doubt due to weekday rush‑hour traffic and the ongoing lack of attention from the local Highways Department. Even so, the leading riders seemed to glide over the rougher sections without much difficulty, judging by the times recorded.
Paceline RT’s veteran Pat Wright took a decisive win, finishing 36 seconds ahead of last year’s winner, Ben Elliott. With no third Paceline rider present, the team award once again went to local club GS Stella, led—just as last year—by 68‑year‑old Dave Pollard (photo attached). He was strongly supported by teammates Mark Jones, 66, and Steve Morgan, 58. Thanks to Mark’s organisation, GS Stella continue to collect a healthy number of local team awards with their consistently strong line‑ups.
One of the most endearing aspects of this sport is the way former top riders continue to give back long after their racing days. Yesterday we saw Alan Robinson of Central Sussex C.C. marshalling, as he so often does, at the age of 85. In his prime in the early 1960s, he finished second in the still‑famous Catford C.C. Hill Climb (or possibly the Bec C.C. event held the same day). Central Sussex Slightly Hilly 10 GS/186