TT ROUND UP – May 2019
There has been a real stop/start feel to this year’s TT season with the disruption that has been wreaked on the club TT courses by long term roadworks, alongside adverse weather, preventing the build-up of momentum we normally see by now from the weekly races. So far we have lost 50% of the club events during April and May. Extremely frustrating but alas a common problem across lots of LWDC clubs.
We hope to switch a couple of events scheduled for June to the HCC175 following which the roadworks are scheduled to have been completed and we can get back to normal.
Despite the disruption on the club TT scene the club’s TT racers have been pretty active in CTT Open events leading up to what should now be the peak summer months. A quick round-up of results so far:
Click here for an expanded version of these results.
Vernon and James lead the way in events ridden so far with James recording some very impressive top 10 finishes in the early season hilly TTs and Vernon committing himself to the Spring Cup road bike series of races. Vernon has once again been keeping us entertained with his race reports posted in the Time Trials section of the Members Forum (you have to be logged in to access this area of the website).
Rider photos have been difficult to come by, but with the kind permission of David Clifford we’ve been able to get our hands on FCCC team members photos at the recent Farnham RC 10 mile event on the H10/8.
From top to bottom: Nick Cosgreave, Rob Salmond, Jeff Davis and Vernon Schutte.
Meanwhile in Wales….
Former FCCC Chairman and still second claim FCCC member Dave Triska, who incidentally is flying this season for Team Bottrill, joined FCCC team members Vernon Schutte, Tim Carman and Jeff Davis for a weekend in Wales to ride the super quick R25/3h course in South Wales on 12 May.
Dave found a lovely Airbnb cottage and sourced a lovely dinner online from “Cooks”. This was his tongue in cheek summary of the weekend:
“So a good day all round.
After a drive up yesterday Jeff and Tim decided to chin off my Airbnb booking and broke into the mansion next door, the owner seeing Jeff’s confused state thought he was a wandering relative of a neighbour and instead offered him a milky tea – got away with it scot free.
A lovely evening meal of massive pie 🥧 was had, everyone bloated and farting on the couches like an indolent Labrador .
Entertainment seemed to be quite racy – we heard the noise of an adult film being shot next door 😱. Closer inspection (for research of course) showed it was in fact Vernon grunting and sweating over a cassette. We closed our eyes and pretended it wasn’t.
Tim PBd and only shat himself once going down the bank. 👍🏻 he also managed to miss the most horrific toilet in Wales at Rhigos and it’s poo mountain 🏔, not the full experience I feel.
Jeff showed what a trooper he was on his continued comeback from injury. Not content with his bionic parts he went around a roundabout for 2 mins to give the other vets a fighting chance.
I likewise felt that I needed one more trip for project 49 so decided to go into a roundabout 10mph too fast and skid into an unintended exit. Shame powered me to a PB just north of 50 😬
Vernon, replete in his new aero kit (the salad bowl 🥗 helmet was ditched) knocked 3 mins off his time to the turn 💪 and achieved a segment Pb.
Wales is awesome! Come on the next trip.”
And Dave is absolutely right, this is an awesome course and should be on every TTers list for a 25 pb. There is likely to be another FCCC trip later this year (probably 18 August) so keep an eye out in the FCCC Time Trial 2019 WhatsApp group for details. If you haven’t joined just email TT Captain Vernon on timetrials@fccc.org.uk and he’ll add you to it.
…. And in Scotland
FCCC TTer and Road Racer, Dean Hendry, competed in the recent Scottish National 10 Mile Championship on 5 May, recording a time of 23:54 on what proved to be a tough course (no-one sub-20). At the time of writing British Cycling have yet to publish the results so we’re not sure of Dean’s placing but it’s great to see the club represented in a “national” – well done Dean.
