Near perfect time trialling conditions greeted the 22 riders who competed in last night’s Manners Cup Handicap 25 mile TT. This is one of the club’s oldest trophies, first awarded in 1926, which in recent years has been held on the K4/25W Banbury/Gaydon B4100 course.
An event of this distance, together with a field of both mixed gender, age and abilities, normally results in some big time gaps. The task therefore of regular club timekeeper Keri Williams is to look into past records and results and come up with handicaps that will produce some close amended times. His other yardstick is the course record which stands at 55.36.
This is held by Jon Simpkins who set off on scratch and although he set the fastest time on the night at 56.56, just 1m.20s. outside the record, his corrected time put him 6th overall.
Mery Wolke winner of the Manners Cup
The Star of the night however, and winner of the Manners Cup, was Mery Wolke who put in a great effort, particularly after she has only recently returned to riding after a long injury. Three more women, Debbie Honour, Naomi de Pennington and Denise Shepherd filled the next three places with very close amended times. The rest of the results illustrate how well the handicaps were calculated, with the whole field, from second to last being covered by just seven minutes.
Top 12 (actual) and nett times: 1. Mery Wolke: (1.29.39) 51.09, 2.Debbie Honour: (1.09.02) 54.52, 3.Naomi de Pennington: (1.03.36) 55.46, 4.Denise Shepherd: (1.07.50) 56.40, 5.Roger Foster: (1.02.36) 56.46, 6.John Simpkins: (56.56) 56.56, 7.Dan Pebody: (1.01.36) 57.16, 8.Manu Heraud: (1.11.24) 57.34, 9.Simon Bull: (59.37) 57.47, 10.Oli Wright: (1.09.23) 57.53, 11.Andy Sleight: (1.11.36) 58.06, 12.Mark Davis: (1.08.47) 58.07
Next week, 12th June, it’s back to our usual Drayton K4/20 course – start 7pm.