Final Old Gore

There’s an old saying, whilst the mouse is away the cats will play or something similar, and that’s what happened last night. With so many away and possibly the threat of rain putting a few off, it left the door wide open for my first win of the season. Well actually left the door wide open for Harwood. The wind was close to gale force 10 making the return home an absolute nightmare, but by the same token not helping 100% on the way out. Dave gave it all the beans out, but once he’d caught me backed off a little, but then again it could have been the wind slowing him! New 2^nd claim rider Adam must have put a huge spurt on in the last 4 miles as I could see him up till that point, Oh how I hate hills….

On his new TT bike, complete with aero helmet Max put in a serious charge to show what new kit can do to times, just wait till he gets used to it. He was only about 20 seconds in front of me on Marcle straight coming back, but he too must have dropped the hammer down in the last couple of miles and up the climb. Taff look out he’ll be very close to your scalp. Tonking Tony was very happy with his ride knocking 46 seconds off his PB, not bad considering he’s not been out for the last couple of weeks. Jennifer this week had a big smile on her face afterwards, as she was not happy with last week’s performance. As we all know Old Gore is much harder than Walford, but even so finding 50 seconds on last week outing. Mike the Post found the evening tough, only excelling up the climb. Gerald also found it tough going but this week was rewarded by passing Mary just before the final climb. Mary was not despondent as on an evening where most had gone slower she’d only lost 2 seconds on her season’s best. Must have been all the training in the last 2 weeks.

Thanks this week go to John Hall, James & Tom Wilson at the roundabout (Tom only cheered me, did anyone notice?), Peb for pushing off and the 2 Julies for timing.

Rider of the night this week was easy, this week it’s Maximum Attack Suff, great ride.

Next week is the final 10 of the year, The Handicap 10. Be early for a handicap, Will and Sammy are in charge. At present we have no turn marshal and lots who want to ride, do we have any volunteers?

The week after is the Long hill climb I’m sure there will be more volunteers than riders for that one as we only need 2 timekeepers.

Don’t think the end of the season is nigh, we have The Vintage Tankard coming up scheduled for 2^nd October, we are hosting around the Marcle circuit.

Wednesday night was the second RFDCC Junior MTB Time Trial held on the FODCA/Free miners Trail at Cannop. The race was over a distance of either 1 or 2 laps with the fastest lap counting in each category. Several lads of our Ross dads took part.

They had an entry of 24 children ranging from 7 to 14 years of age. The most hotly contested category was the 9-11 age group with 15 competitors. Tom Wilson came top in the boys with a time of 22.07 and Ella Church was first girl in 33.47. The fastest ride of the night came from Under 15 category winner, Ashley Hutchison, aged 13, who completed two laps, his best being 19.29. The Under 9 boy’s winner was 7 year old Alastair Cook in 32.18 and the Under 9 girls winner was Lily Crowley, aged 7, in 33.26. James Cook rode around in 26:08 finishing 13^th overall, second in age group.

Tom is 1st left side, next to him is Alister