Sam storms to 5th place in the N&DCA

Saturday afternoon saw Sam Hayes put in his ride of the season to take 5th place overall at round 5 of the Northampton and District Association 15.

A strong headwind to the turn and intermittent rain made for hard conditions for all of the team, but Sam blasted though in just 34:42 to bag 98 points in the series competition and take his highest placing of the year.

Sam Hayes on his way to 5th

The friendly battles between the other team mates also continued, with Stephen Mavin pipping Hugo Hocknell for the first time this year, and taking 10th place overall. Mav clocked 35:31 to Hugo's 35:39 which was still good enough for 11th and will keep him in the hunt for a top 5 finish in the series.

Hugo accelerates out of the roundabout

Steve Robinson took the third placed spot for the team, and despite the poor conditions also shaved 10 seconds from his previous course personal best with 37:20 which was good enough for 21st place.

Steve Robinson

Paul King was the final member of the team in action, and finished hard on Steve's heels with his 37:25 which saw him finish in 24th place from the 70 man field.

Paul King

Round 6 of the competition is just 2 weeks away, and with performances on this level we should be able to get 5 riders in the top 20 of the overall by the end of the season.

Chris overcomes the conditions for great time on the E2

Almost biblical conditions greeted Chris Hartley and Dave Wentworth when they arrived for the Shaftesbury CC 25 on the E2/25 on Saturday with high winds and rain lashing down.

Unperturbed by the conditions Chris Hartley put in his strongest performance of the year to come home in 1:01:44 to take 28th place from the 60 people who were hardy enough to both start and finish. A cracking ride and a sure sign that after a quiet start to the year Chris is really finding his racing legs.

Dave Wentworth also rode well but couldn't quite match Chris, coming home 54 seconds adrift with 1:02:38 to finish 31st.

Hopefully the pair will have finished drying out now ready for their next event!

Team show strength in depth at round 4 of the N&DCA series

6 members of the team were in action on Saturday at the fourth round of the ultra competitive Northampton & District series. This time they were battling 2 laps of a lumpy circuit for a total of 20.8 miles.

First home for the team and into the top ten again in a superb 9th place was Hugo Hocknell with 49:03, a ride good enough to put him in 4th place in the overall competition. Closely behind (as ever!) was Stephen Mavin who finished 12th in 49:38 and has leapt up to 7th in the overall.

Paul King put in another really strong ride for a course PB 51:56 to take 24th spot on the day and climb to 15th in the series.

There was another inter-team battle between David Ledgerton and Lyndon lewis with David taking 49th spot in 59:36 from Lyndon in 50th in 1:01:02with the pair followed by Stuart Hocknell in 1:07:46.

The next round is the 15 mile in mid June when another strong turnout should see the team pushing to get more riders into the top 20.

Roy goes quicker again at the Hitchin Nomads 25

Roy Robinson was in action again this weekend at the Hitchin Nomads 25 on the testing Guilden Morden country lane circuit. As a regular visitor to the course over the last few years Roy has been getting steadily quicker each year and improved again this year by over a minute to record a strong 1:13:01.

This is yet more proof that his consistent training and more regular racing is paying dividends as he now regularly smashes the 20 mph barrier.

Sam and Steve get their 19 at the ECCA championships!

After a few attempts and a lot of hard training Sam Hayes and Steve Robinson finally cracked the magic 30 mph mark for 10 miles with a storming ride of 19:53 at the ECCA tandem championships on Saturday.

Although it wasn't a perfect day the pair rode out of their skins to dip under, despite losing almost 10 seconds at the one turn when they were stopped by traffic. Their time was good enough for third place overall, just 26 seconds behind the winning team of John Iszatt and Dean Lubin.

More photos from the Victoria CC courtesy of Davey Jones

Hugo in full flight on his way to 7th place.

Mav rocking his new look P5 also on his way to 7th place!

Lyndon Lewis flying through Great Chesterford.

Team Salesengine just miss the team prize at the Victoria CC 10.2

Saturday morning saw 6 members of the team in action at the Victoria CC 10.2 mile TT near Saffron Walden. The course drops steadily to the turn and there was a niggling headwind on the way out which took the edge off the times.

In the last 2 events there has been only 4 seconds and then 5 seconds between Hugo Hocknell and Stephen Mavin, so we were expecting a close battle again, but this time there was nothing to split the pair with them both coming home in 23:54 which got them joint 6th place.

Steve Robinson was the third counter of the team for the team prize, but after struggling with a cold all week he was below par and his 25:44 means that the combined time was just behind that of East London Velo who took the team honours. His time was still good enough for 17th place overall.

After almost 2 years away from racing Rik Palmer was back in action, and was forced to resort to a road bike with no tri-bars after mechanical problems on his low profile. This didn't slow Rik down much though and he still recorded an excellent 27:05 and had a massive smile on his face afterwards which was great to see.

Next up for the team was David Ledgerton with a great ride of 28:05 followed closely behind by Lyndon Lewis who showed sterling commitment to his job by taking a work phone call just before leaving for the start and incurred a 30 second late start penalty, and came home in an excellent 30:30. It was a top ride by Lyndon and we just hope his boss appreciates his commitment!

Another top ten for Hugo

Hugo Hocknell added another top ten to his seasons palmares with a great ride in the Peterborough CC 10 on the N1/10 on the 18th May.

Up against a class field that included Michael Hutchinson, the current National 10 champion, Hugo came home in 23:16 to take 9th place overall. The N1 is not the quickest of courses due to the sheer volume of roundabouts to be negotiated, so this was another excellent result for Hugo.

David and Dave put in strong rides at the Lampard 10

Saturday the 18th saw Dave Wentworth and David Legderton in action at the Lampard RC 10 on the F12 near Leighton Buzzard. The F12 is a notoriously difficult course to get a good time on, despite being pretty flat the road surface always seems to take the edge off the times.

On the day Dave Wentworth rode superbly to finish in a fine 11th place with 23:42. David Ledgerton continued to show the signs of his ever improving form to come home in 27th place with 26:42.

Round 3 of the N&DCA - all getting tight within the team..

Saturday afternoon saw Team Salesengine in action at the third round of the N&DCA with eight members of the team competing for bragging rights.

Sam Hayes rode superbly to claim the honour of fastest team member with a strong 24:22 to take 13th place on the day. Hugo Hocknell was next up with 24:40 to again narrowly edge out Stephen Mavin who was an agonizing 4 seconds further back. This is the second ride in a row that Hugo has edged this battle by just a few seconds.

In a change of recent form Steve Robinson (25:30) managed to edge out Paul King (25:50) and take 49 seconds off his course PB despite the hard conditions dragging back from the 5 miles turn.

David Ledgerton was next up with a battling 30:00 to squeeze ahead of Lyndon Lewis on 30:27 and Stuart Hocknell recorded 35:08.

In the series results it looks like Hugo will have cemented his 5th place overall while Mav has climbed into the top ten as well. There is still a long way to go, but on the form the team are showing it is possible we could occupy 5 of the top 20 places by the end of the season!