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| David Duffield | |
| Time Trial | |||
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Every year the Redmon Cycling Club promote
this famous event on the roads around Dorking. The idea of a
"gentlemen's" race is that each entry consists of two riders, one of
whom must be a veteran ("gentleman" or lady). The other rider is there
solely to pace the gent and the gent is not allowed to come to the front. The
secret to a race like this in the pacing - too fast and you will drop your gent,
too slow and the gent will be nudging the pacer to go faster. It can be a
difficult event to ride successfully but when you get a good rhythm going it is
a lot of fun. The winners of an event like this are not necessarily the ones
that get around the course the q Each year this particular event attracts some big names - in the past World Track Champion Tony Doyle MBE has ridden as has Tour De France rider and Tour of Spain Winner Tony Rominger, so it was only fitting that our own big name Jim Trenowden decided to ride and encourage a few more Addiscombe riders to try it.
Jim on the start line
So, contesting this 18 mile testing event we had Jim and his pacer Nick Mann, Dave Fletcher doing his bit for inter club relations with Mick Labram from the Crawley Wheelers, Andrew Montgomery with pacer Doug Rollins, Ron Acre led round by training partner Steve Hehir and Mike Rivett following Dave Palmer. Tony Doyle
There was quite a crowd out to watch this event and with the World watching (well South East England) our lads did well. Jim and Nick got round the rolling 18 mile course in 51 mins 3 secs, Dave Fletcher's pacer must have been working overtime as they got round in 42.46, Monty and Doug recorded 45.00, Ron and Steve's training helped them to 44.19 and Mike and Dave Palmer recorded a fine 46.27.
The famous names really provided an excellent lesson on how to ride a time trial on our local roads. Watching Sean Yates hit the last hill (which features on our local 10 mile time trial course that we all rode on our President's 10) it became apparent the gulf between ordinary riders and the superstars. He never got out of his tri bars, let alone get out of the saddle. If you ever see a picture of him time trialling on the flat in his pro days I can assure he can still time trial like that on a climb that makes my lungs burst! For info Rob Hayles paced A. Croker in 40.53, Tony Doyle was paced round by I. Todd in 40.16 and Michael Hutchinson got Sean Yates round in an amazing 35.18 to set a new course record which will surely stand for a long time.
The post race prize ceremony was a squeeze to get into with so many spectators in attendance. All of the big names were quite happy to chat with anyone over a cup of tea and Rob Hayles even had his Bronze Medal with him to show the awestruck crowd. It was fantastic to get to meet these athletes that you would only normally see on television or via the pages of the cycling magazines and even more fantastic when you realised they were nothing like the prima donnas so often found at the pinnacle of more mainstream sports. Roll on next year. Time to stick some tri bars on my MTB! Marco Framboli
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uickest but the ones who ride fastest taking the
Gent's age into consideration. It is confusing but at least the organisers know
how to work it out!
Obviously the Addiscombe weren't the only big
names at Dorking and it soon transpired that Tony Doyle MBE would be riding
again. Further enquiries showed that Fastest Man of the Year (BBAR) Michael
Hutchinson would be pacing the one and only Sean Yates (TDF Yellow Jersey
wearer, TDF stage winner and team mate and mentor to a young Lance Armstrong).
If this wasn't enough to get Jim's adrenalin going, straight off the plane from
the Sydney Olympics was Bronze Medallist Rob Hayles (who achieved fame in the
eyes of non cyclists up and down the country when he was shown to be brought
down on the Nine O'Clock News whilst in the Silver Medal position on the
last lap of the Madison).
