The first of the club’s longer distance time trials took place last night on the K4/25W course, a 25 mile event for the Friswell Cup. Starting outside the Herb Centre, it’s a challenging ride between Banbury and Gaydon held entirely on the B4100. Another near perfect evening again saw a good entry of 32 riders over a distance not to everyone’s liking.
Distances like this often produce some big time gaps, yet this proved a very close fought time trial with the first five riders covered by just 48 seconds, plus a fourth place tie and all getting under the one hour mark. Henry Sleight (Team Cherwell) set the fastest time of 58.23 with a gap of 26 seconds over second place Simon Smith (Shutt Ridley RT). Tobias Wiesand, who was fastest over the first sector split, was then delayed slightly be a slipped chain at the top of Warmington hill. He recovered to finish third just 8 seconds adrift, but as the first Star rider home was rewarded with the Friswell Cup.
Henry Sleight and Tobias Wiesand power off from the start
Amongst the women Naomi de Pennington put in a strong ride to win with a time of 1.05.37, with Annie Heaney on 1.07.26 and Ila Pearson, having her first ride on a proper TT bike, on 1.14.08.
Top 10 positions: 1.Henry Sleight: 58.23, 2.Simon Smith: 58.49, 3.Tobias Wiesand: 58.57, 4. Ben Heaney and Simon Smart: 59.11, 6.Simon Bull: 1.00.20, 7.Darren Alexander: 1.00.41, 8. Andrew Foster: 1.01.10, 9.Dan Pebody: 1.02.13, 10.Stuart Quick: 1.02.54