Sussex Cycle Racing League

Peter Baker’s exploits in the Sussex Cycle Racing League Track League at Preston Park, Brighton, continued into Week 16, which was held on Wednesday 30th July.

He started the night with 6th place from eight racers in the “Champs Scratch” Race.  He was 5th from seven in the following 5-lap “Elimination”, then 6th from nine in the “Unknown” distance race.  His evening concluded with the “Crawl”, in which he was 5th from seven.

Eastbourne Rovers Birling Gap TT

The following evening, a trio of Wanderers were among eight competitors as Eastbourne Rovers held a time-trial on their tough 7.2-mile Birling Gap course.

Ben Gregory was quickest on the “prime” from the start, just east of Birling Gap to the top of Beachy Head.  His time of 7 minutes and 23 seconds was just one second faster than Paget Cohen and seven quicker than Alex Steer as between them they filled fourth to sixth places.

Ben maintained his advantage come the finish as he took fourth overall and fastest road bike with a new course personal best of 20 minutes and 45 seconds.

Alex and Paget claimed the remaining two steps on the “road-bike podium”. Alex was fifth overall with a fine 21:17 on his course debut and Paget equalled his course PB and took sixth with 21:47.

Paget Cohen by Paul Paxford

CX Reigate

Not to be deterred, Paget pinned a number on his back again on the afternoon of Saturday 9th August when he was joined by Dan Street to compete at CX Reigate.

Seventy-one riders endeavoured to complete as many laps as they could within 45-minutes around an extremely hilly course laid out in Priory Park on what was a baking hot afternoon.

After strong starts, Paget and Dan wilted in the heat, but then so did all bar the fittest of athletes.  Each suffered a minor off at slow speed on the last lap as they attempted to extract every last ounce of effort to improve, or protect their position. Thankfully, both survived to the finish with Dan 14th overall and 5th from 29 in the Master 50+ Category, and Paget 31st overall and 14th in the same age group.

Eastbourne Rovers Hill Climb

A couple of weeks after we held our annual Hill Climb Championship up Firle Beacon, Eastbourne Rovers did the same with a quartet of Wanderers among the contenders on the evening of Thursday 14th August.

Dan Street confirmed his prowess among the Wanderers as he took third from fifteen in a time of 5 minutes 18.8 seconds.  Alex Steer took 6th with 5:50.1, Peter Baker 8th with 6:04.6, and Ben Gregory 10th after 6 minutes 34.4 seconds of lung-bursting effort.

ESCA 25

Peter and Ben came back down from altitude on Sunday 17th August when they were joined by Neil Edwards to compete in an East Sussex Cycling Association 25-mile time-trial.  With an 8am start, they all had traffic to deal with on the A22 as people started heading for the coast on what was a hot sunny day.

Neil stopped the watch after exactly 1 hour and two minutes of effort to claim 11th overall and runner-up in the road-bike category.  In his debut at the distance, Ben recorded a fine 1:03:36 to take 15th overall and just miss the road bike podium.  Peter was 17 seconds and two places behind Ben, and between them, the trio took runner-up in the team competition.