Steve Dennis writes…
After five events of being the Bridesmaid (or even ushers), Dennis
finally gets a win! Are all those miserable wet training rides last
winter at last starting to pay off? Or just a fluke – only time will
tell.
Only two Grinnies entered the SCCU 25 on the G25/53 Broadbridge Heath
course on the Sunday. I guess the others thought they’d have tired
legs
after their efforts in Saturday’s Bentley 25 in Hampshire (see
report).
One person who obviously didn’t worry about his previous days efforts
was Richard Woodward who rode a personal best 10 on the Saturday
afternoon (again, see report) and shrugged off the chilly north-east
gale on Sunday to record 1hr 4mins 16 seconds. He’d gone home by the
time I got back, so I never saw him.
I was off last man at no.80, over an hour after Richard so it had
warmed up a little, but the wind was still there which made the leg
out
to Crawley hard. It was a flyer back to Southwater though. And then
all
you had to do was ride the last 4 miles back into the ever increasing
head-wind.
Back at the HQ I thought that my 54:13 was going to be close call
with
other top seeds, but a quick look at the result board confirmed that
I
was well clear with the closest time being 55:59 by Guy Powdrill of
London Dynamo. Third was Bec CC’s Keith Coffey with 56:41.