LWCC Crits Rd 2 and racing round-up
The second of the three Lewes Wanderers’ Criterium road races for the season took place on the hot, still evening of Thursday 8th June. A field of 29 riders took to the rolling start shortly after 7:15pm.
Winner of the first Prime Sprint a week earlier James Bullen (trainSharp) was on the front as the bunch swung left up Shortgate Lane for the opening Prime of Round 2, but was edged out of the top three by Jan Grosicki (Sussex Revolution Velo Club), Chris Parsons-Green (Southborough & District Wheelers) and Ben Neal (LVC Racing). The same three riders scooped the points the next time round, but this time Parsons-Green got the better of Grosicki with Neal again third.
On the third of the five laps Parsons-Green’s team-mate Neil Harris attacked along with Mark Smith (Crawley Wheelers) enjoying the fact that his bike hadn’t let him down as in Round 1. These two held an advantage of approaching 20 seconds before the final Prime which Smith took from Harris with Charles Burrell beating the remaining bunch to third.
With multiple teams giving chase the duo’s gap shrunk to barely a few seconds at times, but somehow they stayed away to contest the final sprint which went decisively to Harris despite Smith’s best efforts.
Parsons-Green repeated his third place from Round 1, just ahead of Ben Tappenden (Precise Performance RT) - the winner of the opening Round. Fourth placed finisher from the previous race San Benge (trainSharp) had to settle for fifth this time.
Going into the third and final round on June 15th Parsons-Green holds a narrow lead over Tappenden, but all of the riders to claim major points from Round 2 still have a chance of victory in the series.
Switching from the open to closed circuit where Peter Baker was heavily involved in Round 6 and 7 of the Sussex Cycle Racing League at Preston Park Outdoor Velodrome (Brighton) on the last two Wednesday evenings of May. On the 24th he finished 5th in the Scratch Race and “Snowball”, 6th in the Elimination, 5th again in “Win-and-Out” and 16th from 24 in the final Block Handicap event.A week later he improved to take 2nd in the Scratch, “Dash”, “Tempo” and Omnium Points events and 16th from 19 this time in the Block Handicap.
On 8th June Peter switched his attention back to the roads and efforts against the clock as he was among eleven competing in Eastbourne Rovers 13.2mile time-trial that evening on a course truncated from its norm due to roadworks. His time of 3 seconds outside of 41 minutes placed him 10th overall, but second among those on road bikes.
Peter Baker by Emma Gearing
On Sunday 11th June he was among just nine participants in the Southern Counties Cycling Union 50-mile time-trial. Once more the course had to be adjusted to allow for roadworks north of Steyning, but the organisers thankfully managed to avoid shortening the distance as there are few 50s held and the results count towards several season-long competitions. In sweltering conditions Peter covered the revised course in 2 hours 14 minutes and 46 seconds for 6th place.
