A bank holiday bonanza of cycling ensured that members of the Lewes Wanderers Cycling Club made best use of the remnants of a pitiful spring to grab some racing action in something approaching favourable conditions.
The weekend kicked off on Saturday with Nick and Kaye Dwyer heading out to Farnham to compete in the Farnham RC Ten. With the thermometer scaling the dizzy height of 16 degrees conditions were set fare for some fast rides on this very fast course near Farnham. Last year, talented Lewes front man Nick Dwyer missed out on the top spot by an agonising three seconds in this event, this year, despite setting a course PB (20:22), was pipped by one second for overall honours by Tejvan Pettinger (Sri Chinmoy CC). Kaye Dwyer had a splendid outing and managed to slice an impressive minute of her PB in a time of 27:01. Neil Midgley completed the Lewes line up and had a solid ride finishing in a time of 23:18.
Four members of the Lewes squad opted to compete in Sunday’s Sussex CA thirty mile event held on an undulating course based around Partridge Green. The thirty-mile option is one seldom used, with 25-miles being the preferred racing distance for most testers. The novelty of the distance sets its own problems with the extra five miles making pace judgement difficult.
All four riders notched up PB performances on the day, a good effort on such a tricky course. First Lewes man home was Tom Glandfield (1:09:58) followed by your correspondent (1:15:00), Sam Ramsey (1:15:42) and Stephen Gaston (1:19:16). The promising Steve Kane of Brighton Mitre won the event in a time of 1:06:02.
Bank Holiday Monday delivered atypical weather as the rain held off and the sun shone. These favourable conditions helped riders set some fast times in a bewildering series of esoteric rides provided by promoter Robin Johnson. The meeting kicked off with the “flat bling event”. In this ten miler, riders could race on full TT bikes featuring all the usual time trial accruements. Nick Dwyer blazed round the course in a time of 20:40 to snatch top billing on the day. Nick teamed up with Phil Allen (21:57) and Tom Glandfield (22:00) to capture the team prize. Kaye Dwyer had a solid ride finishing third in the Ladies competition (27:58) which was won by Olympic superstar Joanna Roswell, who smashed the ladies course record setting a staggering time of 21:48.
After riding the first event Nick swapped bikes to ride on his road bike to compete in the second race and posted a fast time of 23:25 to gain second spot in this competition.
After their lung bursting and sinew stretching efforts the last thing most riders would wish to do is to relive the pain and agony. Several riders elected to subject their bodies to more torture to ride again in the legendary Hilly Ten. This ride starts off with a flat out sprint of eight miles retracing the start of the flat ten. This fast start to the race lulls many riders into a false sense of security as the last section of the ride consists of the brutal climb up to the top of Stennying Bostal. This climb is so steep that some riders have been unable to make it to the top; so to subject your body to this torture requires physical and mental fortitude of the most extreme kind. Duncan Fuller and Phil Allen were the only Lewes souls brave enough to attempt the ride and completed the course in very respectable times of 25:57 and 27:07 respectively.
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