Toby wins

Congratulations to Toby Neave who scored his, and the club's, first road race win of the year in the elite at Portsmouth on Saturday. Toby writes ... "Within 10mins a group of 4 had got away (Myself, paul pickup, jason streather and john wager) and 2 chasing (simon brooks and phil sykes). We soon lapped the field and it stayed as a bunch until the last 10mins, when i attacked with paul pickup. Despite an 8 man chasing group we stayed away, and at the finish i rode the perfect sprint to beat Paul by a fair few lengths!" Toby also raced on Sunday, featured in breaks but blew towards the end and finished in the bunch.
Mark Trevis finished 18th.
Rob Fields made his road racing debut for club in the 4th cat race and finished equal 7th. Well done Rob.

Fareham Wheelers RR

We had four starters in the Fareham Wheelers road race. Andy Page was 10th, Mark Warrington 16th, Richard Bevan 20th and Angus Fraser 27th.
Mark and Angus write ... " A fantastic course, even better because there was no real control by any team. I think DHC had aspirations but they weren't strong enough and nor were any of the other teams.There was the usual first lap chaos when the eventual winner got away for a little while before being pulled back.On the second lap on the fastest part (and also the roughest part of the course) at least four riders went down which delayed Andy, Richard and myself. The eventual winner seized the moment and got away. On the 3rd lap Andy tried to bridge with a couple of other riders and probably got it down to 10 seconds with the bunch a further 10s but it came back together with the leader opening up to about 30s. Allthough the pressure was kept on and the bunch became smaller the winner only really got his margin on the last half lap when everybody fanneyed (real 70s word) around expecting the sprint for second. Andy finished 10th, I got 16th (followed the wrong wheel but happy to accept there was nothing in the legs) , not sure about Rich or Fraser.
The best moment was seeing XXXXXXX who is normally goby, to say the least, go out the back on the first climb, followed by I Team."
"It was a tough hilly course which was either up or down and nothing in between! So certainly from my point of view it was not my kind of course as it was just too hilly for me.I found myself off the back right at the beginning which I think was more to do with me not concentrating on what was going on around me, being in too bigger gear and not warming up properly (the race started with a climb!)! That was my first 'proper' road race so I'll put it down to experience. If you look at the pictures in the race report on the BC website you will see me right at the back... yep thats me no.32!!!

I did manage to get back onto the bunch but I ended up doing too much to get back on so I couldn't stay with them so basically ended up riding around on my own. I managed to overtake a number of riders on the way around once I'd warmed up and got going properly and there were a few who dropped out which I believe was more to do with the course as opposed to technical issues... I for one was not going to give up!!

Having not been in the bunch it's a bit difficult to give a full report but the guy who won it did so from a break where he managed to stay away and I think he came in nearly 2 minutes ahead of everyone else. There was a crash which involved around 6 riders, luckily none of us, and I do not believe there were any serious injuries.
The weather was a bit chilly, especially as we had to wait a while at the start but all in all very good and pretty much ideal"

Club night

It's club night on Sunday, 5 April at 8pm at the Fountain, South Street, Chi.

Chichester Gala Road Race 1964ish

Ann Owen, CS Dynamo, formerly of the VC Noviomagus kindly sent me this picture of the Chichester Gala Road Race. Ann is trying to work out what year it was. She thinks 1964. John JP Pendleton, our founder, is on the right with the peaked cap.