Road Racing
Reading hosted a fine day's road racing on Sunday as Reading Cycling
Club and AW Cycles Race Team joined forces to hold their Spring Road
Races on a tough hilly course on roads around the Woodcote, Goring &
South Stoke.
A week which began with the change to British Summer Time ended with the
return of winter weather, leading to cancellation of some cycling
events.
Time Trials
Reading CC's Tuesday evening time trial series kicked off the summer
race season with an event on the 10-mile Waltham St Lawrence course in
breezy but dry conditions. Paul Taylor, who ended the 2007 season as the
club's strongest time-triallist, has clearly made it through winter with
form intact, recording a very fast 23:05 for this course which sees few
"Beyond Spring" Criterium Series, Race 3
Steve Bale, Wayne Thomas, Rob King, and John Snead represented Reading
CC at the third and final race of the Beyond Spring series at the
Hillingdon circuit. Although it was wet, cold and windy 70 riders signed
on for the 54km 2nd/3rd/4th category race. There was no shortage of
spirit and riders put in hard efforts trying to break away. However
no-one could sustain any advantage and the race stayed together until
just before the halfway point. At that point the consistent pace of the
lead dozen proved too much for the rest and a gap appeared that no one
could bridge. The Reading riders were too far back in the group to turn
the situation around. Bale came to the front and with a Welwyn rider
Despite Arctic weather over the course of the Easter break, Reading's
time-triallists featured in many races. They scored some excellent
early-season results as reward for braving all that the elements threw
at them.
High Wycombe CC 10-mile TT
Peter Graham was the first in action, riding the High Wycombe CC '10' on
the A420 near Oxford. On a very cold and extremely windy Good Friday he
recorded a time of 24"10 for 16th place out of 102 riders. Winner was
the 100 mile national champion Richard Prebble, GS Strada, in 21"03.
Farnham RC 10-mile TT
Nick and Elizabeth English rode their tandem in the Farnham RC event on
the A31 in Hampshire on Saturday morning. Nick reports, "The weather
wasn't kind with savage winds and icy showers so there were just a few