Reading Cycling Club

Pedal On Cycles in Tadley organised an inter-club competition using the Tacx i-Magic turbo trainer. The Pedal On team set the early standards with each of their five riders inside 7 minutes for the 2.7 mile hilly course. For Reading, National Under-16 Sprint Champion, Neil Cooper was first off and after a concentrated ride clocked 6 minutes and 24 seconds. Next up was a rider from CC Basingstoke, then a North Hants RC rider. Mark Pardoe was next on the TCR for Reading. His 6 minutes 15 was only 8 seconds behind the fastest Pedal On rider's time.
	Stewart House
Neil Cooper - with father Paul watching.	David Harrison
Mark Pardoe	Mark Pettitt
All photographs kindly provided by David Clifford.

Riders from CC Basingstoke and North Hants continued to compete. David Harrison went off hard from the start and maintained a terrific pace to finish only one second short of Chris Minter's early standard. Next up for Reading was Mark Pettitt. After a good start Mark began to suffer and as the image above shows, concentration was essential to get to the finish in one piece! 6 minutes 39 seconds was the final time.

Finally, the piece-de-resistance was provided by second claim member, Stewart House. Could he get inside six minutes? With a recent 20th placing in the National Hill Climb Championships, surely there was a good chance. Stewart began steadily (36 mph @ over 700 watts!), then maintained a constant 110 rpm until the finish flag was in sight - when a smile broke on his face as he realised he was going to get the fastest time of the night.

Reading CC won the team prize and had the fastest rider of the night. Thanks to Pedal On for organising it. Full results and more pictures are available from Pedal On's website.

Mark Pardoe

www.pedalon.co.uk