The recent poor weather and low temperatures have caused the cancellation of many events over the last two weeks, but today the latest round of the WTTA Hardriders time trial series took place at Maiden Bradley. The 24 miles course heads up to Frome and then back through Maiden Bradley, onto Mere, up the Wheelers’ hillclimb of Mere Hollow, through the Deverills and then back to Maiden Bradley from the A350.
The strong and very cold East wind played havoc with the competitors’ times, with the section from Mere to Longbridge Deverill particularly hard. Despite struggling to find his usual power levels, fastest of the GDW riders was Vince Hounsome in 20th position with a time of 1.10.09. James Chant was some seven minutes slower than 2012 with 1.13.45 in 27th and took solace with an afternoon of cake eating. James Foster was riding in his first Hardrider tt and did well for 34th (1.17.40) while Grahame Reed came home in 1.19.25 (38th).
Rob Pears was the only rider under one hour, winning with a time of 59.10 from Dave Kiddell and Paul Jones.
The previous weekend had even worse weather but the final round of the Offcamber winter mountain bike series went ahead as planned at Inside Park. Several riders didn’t make it to the venue due to the snow while many of the 56 starters opted to finish at the end of two laps because of the extreme cold and wet conditions. Mark Chadbourne won ahead of James Davey and Simon Willetts with Nigel Brown riding well to get fourth. Andy Parsons was close behind Nigel in fifth.
The overall prizes had already been wrapped up, with the men’s section going to Paul Hopkins from Kim Little and Andy Parsons, Julie Crane won the women’s section from Patsy Caines, Kris Caines beat Liam Teesdale to the junior crown while the over 50s section was won by series host Jerry Cooper.
Thanks to Paulus Reynolds for the following photos –
