Steve Dennis writes…
Three members entered and rode in the Addiscombe CC 25 on Sunday the 30th April. On a colder morning than the previous weekend, times were a little down, but still respectable. Casualty of the morning was Richard Woodward who punctured after only a few miles, so hope of improving on his previous weeks time of 1hr 4mins and 21secs was dashed early on.
Mike Anton, still getting used to his new titanium bike, just keeps on improving, and his time of 1hr 0mins and 39secs just shows what he should be capable of when we eventually get some warmer mornings!
Our third entrant on the start sheet of 112 riders was Steve Dennis, who riding his first “proper” 25 of the season, recorded 54mins and 31sec, enough for 4th place. The event, which was held on roads between Southwater and Crawley, was won by Laurence Harding of the www.agiskoviner.com team in a time of 52mins 35secs.
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Mike Anton writes…
The G25/53 is the local fast course, starting just north of Broadbridge Heath and running along the A264 to Broadfield. It turns and then has a (not so) quick trip up Tollgate Hill, before returning to the A24. From this junction it’s down to the Pollards hill roundabout at Southwater and then back to finish near Farthings Hill.
It was a pretty chilly start, and I was the 52nd rider of at 7:22! The wind was coming from the east which is fairly unusual for this course, and appeared to have picked up at the event progressed.
Having picked up some sort of cold on Friday, I didn’t really feel up to much. The first 30 minutes saw me trying to get a vaguely decent breathing pattern, after which I decided it wasn’t really worth pushing it.
I was then somewhat surprised to finish with 1:00:39.
Steve was off number 80 and looked to be his usual comfortable self when I spotted him en route.
Richard was our only other rider, off number 98. Unfortunately a puncture put paid to his ride after about 2 miles.
Back at the HQ the organisers had a laptop hooked up to a projector for the results, and this certainly looked impressive. What wasn’t quite so good was the revolving results screens sorting from the fastest to the slowest.
This was a bit confusing to follow though did lead to a nail biting climax, as the eventual winner was the third to last man to ride.
1st Laurence Harding, www.agiskoviner.com, 52:35
2nd Richard Prebble, Pinarello RT, 53:43
3rd Mike Coyle, VC Etoile, 53:44
4th Steve Dennis, East Grinstead CC, 54:31
5th Gary Banfield, Kent Cycles RC, 54:47
