Steve Dennis writes…
With the weather having reaped havoc the previous 2 weeks, it was a pleasant change to wake up to blue skies and light winds on Sunday morning. Two EG riders were on the start sheet to ride the Norwood Paragon “Robin Buchan Memorial” 25 mile time trial to be held on the Southwater – Crawley course.
In a far from stellar field with half the “fast boys” riding the Charlotteville 50 the same morning (see Ben Hardisty’s report), I was favourite to win being placed No.120 or “last man off”. Our other competitor, Ben Crick, due to start some 76 minutes earlier, was a non-starter due to him falling off the previous day and injuring his back.
My main rivals in this race were Lewes’s Nick Dwyer and In-Gear’s Rupert Burbidge, both of whom have been improving steadily the last few seasons. Nick was off 10 minutes in front of me, which on this particular course I can use to judge my progress at the cross-over points. I missed him at the first but at Hop Oast roundabout it looked pretty close and I still had the long head-wind drag back to the finish.
I got held up on the return to Hop Oast (as usual!) by a queue of traffic, but managed to drill it on the descent to cross the line in 53:01. Nick was 49 seconds back for second place with Rupert tying with Ian Brogden of Eastbourne Rovers for 3rd place with 55:09.
