2020 WECC RIDERS IN OPEN TIME TRIALS

SCA Hard Riders

GS/195
(shortened)

Sunday 1st March 2020

The SCA/WECC Hilly/Hardriders event is always a little bit of a lottery with the weather. last year saw all three WECC riders DNS due to extremely windy and potentially dangerous conditions. Whilst the 2020 event seemed to have escaped the clutches of Storm Jorge, there was still sufficient surface water to mean that the course had to be shortened to 22.80 miles due to a road closure near the end of the course. Whilst winds were still gusting up to 25 mph there were seven entrants from WECC which may be the biggest club field in his event in recent history.

Our riders made their own decisions as to their equipment choice and with John McGrath and Simon Steeles citing riding their TT rigs as "scary" those opting for road bikes may have chosen wisely! It was a difficult ride with a cornucopia of pot-holes and puddles to be avoided and quite breezy at some points. Worthing put in a good and solid performance and if nothing else it would be a good race training ride.

The results were:

1. John McGrath (TT bike) 58.45 (7th)
2. Nik Allen (TT bike) 58.47 (8th)
3. Simon Steeles (TT Bike) 1.05.41 (24th)
4. Ian Cheesman (Road bike) 1.07.04 (27th)
5. Colin Toppin (Road Bike) 1.07.52 (29th)
6. Rick Hughes (TT Bike) 1.08.55 (30th)
7. Dom Maxwell (Road Bike) DNS

Placing are provisional as Cheesy had to rely on his eyesight and counting!! It should be noted that Rick had to deal with a shipped chain which impacted his time but John won his age category and came 3rd on VTTA Standard, as well as taking club honours, just 2 seconds ahead of Nik. Had Dom not been suffering from a cold WECC would have won the road bike category by default.

A good start to the 2020 season with some early points for our riders in the SPOCO competition.
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