The League International’s regional time trial championships were held on Saturday on a challenging course around King’s Somborne in Hampshire.  The 20 kilometre route takes in a real mix of terrain with some long hard climbs and fast descents.  Charles Rees went one better than last year, taking second place overall with a time of 28.14, some two minutes faster than he managed in 2009.  Charles managed to beat the winner of the last three seasons, Bryce Dyer (VO2), unfortunately Michael Cotty (Cannondale Racing) hadn’t read the script and just pipped Charles by five seconds.  Chris Mullett struggled round with his early season injury playing him up again and he finished with a time of 36.57.
In the afternoon, the two-up pairings took to the same course, with Chris joined by John Phillips.  They managed to catch the other GDW team of James Chant and Sarah Roberts during their ride and came home in 37.17.  Sarah and James got round in 41.58, a time which didn’t exactly worry the front runners!  The winning team was Bryce Dyer and Julian Thacker (CC Weymouth) with 28.17. 

Simon Rouse went on a camping trip to Pembrokeshire this weekend, taking part in the Pembrokeshire Velo Club Open event.  The club were holding their triple header tt event over the three Bank Holiday days.  Saturday’s opening 10 mile tt saw the riders having to tackle a stiff headwind over the opening miles which affected evreyone’s times.  Simon finished in 21st with a time of 25.11.  Next up for the competitors was a hillclimb of 1.3 miles.  Simon managed to use the big chain ring all the way and came home in 10th place with a time of 4.42.1.  The third and final stage was on the (very chilly) Monday morning.  This was a 15 mile tt on a sporting course which Simon completed in 38.39 for 23rd place.  This sounds like a great event, one which Simon plans to go back to, though in a hotel next time!

The EDCA series continued this weekend, also on Monday and also with a 15 mile tt.  This was held on the Upton bypass near Poole.  Vince Hounsome was the fastest of the GDW riders with a time of 37.30.  James Chant finished just 12 seconds back from Vince but his time included a 12 second late start penalty, meaning that for the second week in a row Vince and James completed their rides in exactly the same time.  Unfortunately for Vince, his ride was hampered by a broken spoke early on in the tt, a problem which left him with his rear wheel dragging on the brake – not what you need when tt-ing!  Chris Mullett put in a good ride to finish just over two minutes further back on 39.47.  The overall winner was Julian Jenkinson (UTAG-Yamaha) in 31.44 with Julia Shaw (also UTAG-Yamaha) in second (32.38).

Charles Rees and James Chant travelled over to Frome for the Somer Valley CC club 10 on Tuesday evening, Charles finished with his best time on this course, his 21.14 good enough for second place behind Rob Pears (Bath CC) who set a new course record of 20.18.  James Chant managed 24.09.