Cambridge Uni E2/25

The E2 is reputedly one of the fastest 25 courses in the country, so Steve Robinson had high expectations of a good ride leading up to this Saturday morning event.

On the day the wind was slightly stronger than the forecasters had predicted and it took the edge off the times. Steve missed breaking the magical hour barrier but still recorded his fastest time for 9 years with a 1:01:16.

West London 50 - Stormer from PK

Paul King and Steve Robinson were competing in the West London 50 at Newbury at the weekend. Conditions were cold and blustery which made for a challenging event.

Paul was absolutely on fire, his time of 2:11:40 taking him to 27th place. Considering the hard conditions the fact that he got within almost a minute of his PB says it all.

Steve meanwhile didn't fare so well after choosing a disasterous pacing strategy. Aiming to ride at 25 pace and hang on proved too much and at 33 miles he called it a day.

Taem Ecomonic 10 - E2/10

Dave Wentworth was in action at the 10mile distance on Saturday in the Team Economic 10miler on the E2/10 course. Another tough hard wind start saw Dave recording a slow 12:45 to the turn. First objective of the ride had already been missed by this point - he was caught by minute man (just) before half -way. Stopped to a stand-still on the roundabout turn. A very fast return leg - again - saw Dave recording a 10:02 for a finish time of 22:52. Aargh, just a single second short of his current PB for the 10mile event - maybe that hold-up at the turn really did cost Dave a PB?! Most riders were indicating a hard day with times well short of their PBs - so to be just a second short of a PB and his fifth fastest ever leaves Dave well chuffed.

Photos from the National championships

22nd in the National championships!

OK, so let's not look at how many teams completed the course, better to just focus on a cracking ride by the team.

Having lulled Graeme into riding by saying it was only a 50km 3-up (31 miles) it came as a shock to find out it was in reality a 37 mile course! As we wound up for the finish the even bigger shock was that the course turned out to to 38.6 miles. The last unplanned for mile was an absolute killer as we had all left everything on the road a mile back!

Overall though we rode really well as a team to clock 1:31:43 an average of 25.3 mph for almost 39 miles. It may have been a long way off the 31mph averaged by Team Shorter Rochford to win it, but still a great result.

Highlight of the event was probably the battle with Redbridge when they caught us at 28 miles. We re-passed them 3 times, and at one stage were side by side at 28 mph just battling to get passed. Given they had caught us from 3 minutes we were always going to lose in the horsepower stakes, but the battle was fun!

Overall it was a great event, I genuinely don't think we could have done any more and the team did www.Salesengine.co.uk proud. Nice one lads!

Shaftsbury 25 - E2/25

Dave Wentworth opted to ride on Saturday in the Shaftsbury 25 miler on the E2/25 - becasue he was too chicken to ride the National 3-up on Sunday morning. A real slog to reach the 12.5 mile turn in a exactly 35 minutes - very hard and very slow. A sub-hour ride looked out of the question at this stage, but the next 5 miles to Six Mile Bottom on the return were done in just 10 minutes and Dave started to think it might be possible. But then the thigh cramp set-in!!! Even a 25:22 for the second 12.5 miles wasn't enough for that sub-hour ride. Even tough Dave had caught several riders he was a tad disappointed with a 1:00:22. Never mild, always next week!!

Early start for the National Championships

Team Salesengine.co.uk will have the pleasure of being the first team on the road at the Team Time Trial National championships on the 5th July. This means a wonderfully early start time of 06:03.

Distance is 50km and the team is Graeme King, Steve Robinson and Paul King. Other riders in the field include the current 10,25 and 50 National champion Michael hutchinson as well as ex pro Sean Yates. Don't think the win is on the cards for the salesengine boys!

Whitewebbs 25 - F1/25

Dave Wentworth was back in action again this weekend, after giving the racing a rest last weekend, in the Whitewebbs 25 on the A1 course at Tempsford. Dave never felt good and certainly wasn't "floating along", so was quite pleased to record his fifth fastest 25 ever with a 59:42. The surface on the Tempsford-Buckden course seems to get worse almost every week these days - so many bumps and potholes now that you can't take your eyes of the road ahead for a single moment!!

ECCA 10 - E10/2

Dave Wentworth rode the ECCA 10mile Championship on the E2/10 on Saturday afternoon. Although Dave got out to the 5 mile turn in 10:30, he just couldn't hold the speed over the last couple of miles. The last mile was particularly tough and just sapped all the speed from the ride. Well cuffed with a 23:15 for his best ride of the year so far, though.

Team Spirit in Milton Keynes

Sunday morning witnessed three of the four team members of Team Salesengine.co.uk battling it out to be top dog at the Team Spirit 10 in Milton Keynes.

The F5 looks like it should be a quick course, decent road surface, reasonably sheltered in parts and nice dual carriageway. Problem is that it is very draggy and despite good temperatures there was a strong headwind on the way back from the turn, this all conspired to slow times down.

Winner of the fastest man in the team award goes to Dave Wentworth who battled through the wind in 24:41 for a 21 second beating of Steve Robinson who finished with 25:02. Paul King had a bit of an off day and was a bit further back on 25:44, but he'll be back with avengance I'm sure in the next few weeks.

Didn't get time to hang on to see who won it, but we missed out on the team prize to Team Milton keynes who had a couple of guys in the top 5. Close but no cigar this time for the team prize, but our day will come!