Report - 30th May 2013

We had 23 riders this evening, including four members making their TT debuts (Joanna, Joe , Chris and Ed) and another new guest from Milton Keynes, Jason Lee, who took the honours on the evening with the fastest time of 26.39.

Conditions were more favourable this evening than they have been for a number of weeks and we had six PBs with notable improvements by Andy Holt, David Wilson and Stuart West. Andrew Kluth and Stephen Lyons also improved as did current Handicap Trophy leader Jon Keefe .

Our guests from Milton Keynes, Jason and Kevin, took first and third place with debutant Joe Finucane splitting them in second place with an excellent 26.47 despite having an attack of cramp a half mile from the finish which caused him almost to stop pedalling.

Ed Cosbie, despite his protests of not been on his bike for a long time, turned in a very creditable 32.28 for a first ride as did Chris Goodsall with a 35.54 and Joanna Fitzsimons with a 38.01. We have now had 60 riders take part in this year’s TT series and there are still plenty of weeks left for many others to test themselves on our popular course.

We had to amend the start and finish points this evening as there was a 3-way set of temporary traffic lights in the village of Abbotsley, so we began the TT beyond the traffic lights and finished at the top of the hill in the village. As the course was shortened for the evening it was agreed that for handicap time purposes we would add 20 seconds to the times posted and if this resulted in an improvement over the previous best time then this revised time would stand as the new handicap time. For example, Stuart West's previous best was 28.50. Tonight’s time was 27.17 + 20 seconds = 27.37, so his handicap time is now 2.37 instead of 3.50 (25 minutes is the standard time for handicap purposes).

Times

Handicap Points

We are now a third of the way through the TT series and after 6 events Jon Keefe continues to hold the “yellow jersey” with his consistent and improving performances and another PB this evening. Despite 23 riders on the road there were only 15 points on offer as we do not include first time riders and guests in the points.  Maximum points were taken by David Wilson who had the most improved performance of the evening.

At the same date in 2012, the leader (Jonathan Pang) had 53 points and we already have 4 riders over this total so it looks like it will take a record number of points to win the trophy in 2013, and at the moment anyone in the Top 5 has to be in contention.