Following a slower than normal start to his competitive racing season Alan Cook came out all guns blazing at Ross-on-Wye and District's Thursday night cycling time trial event to set a new course record.
Not featured every year on the racing calendar, and a welcome change for many from the usual ten mile weekly race, competitors were challenged with completing three laps of the Much Marcle circuit.
The key to successfully racing this event is keeping a consistent pace across each of the six and a half mile laps and ideally finishing each circuit slightly faster than the previous one.
Those starting too fast and putting in an impressive time for the first lap are often left completing their final lap painfully slowly. Cook demonstrated how to ride the perfect race finishing in the new course record of 44 minutes, 38 seconds and with only a 8 second difference across the 3 laps.
Several other riders also showed impressive pacing ability putting in some strong performances and gaining personal best times, specifically Bob Hill 51.33 in 3rd place just beating Paul Stephens in to 4th with 51.41, Steve Millard proving that getting older is certainly not slowing him down on a bike finishing in 52.23, a similar time to that of ten years ago. James Wilson whilst not riding his faster racing bike still set a new personal best of 56.24 over two minutes faster than his previous fastest time. Ollie Hales and Tony Price attempting this event for the first time and both relatively new to cycling time trials both demonstrated their potential at the sport by clocking consistent lap times and both finishing just over the hour.
This week's event returns to the more familiar Ledbury Road course racing through Much Marcle towards Ledbury and back starting just after the the Old Gore crossroads meeting at 7.15pm.
All supporters or anyone with an interest in cycling is welcome.
Ross Cycling Club contact details, updates and events can be found at:http://www.rossonwye">www.rossonwye. cyclists.co.uk