Sue Middup-Jones
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The 2007 Midlands Women's Time Trial Series got under way with a really encouraging turn out last Thursday. Seventeen women aged from 12 to over 50, novices, tri-athletes and experienced testers from seven different clubs came together on a beautiful spring evening for the Bromsgrove Olympique CC's evening club 10 mile TT.
The course used the quiet country lanes of rural Worcestershire not far from Droitwich and all riders were able to focus on their racing with few concerns about traffic.
Some excellent times were done by those who have never ridden a time-trial before particularly when you take into account that this was an extremely tough (i.e. slow) course. Experienced tester Ruth Eyles (Beacon RCC) secured the win but second place was a close contest between tri-athlete/duathlete Ros Viner and novice Clare Dieppe of the Beacon RCC. Long-distance Audax-specialist Fenella Brown (Beacon RCC) proved she has a good turn of speed to take 4th in front of the Birmingham Running and Tri Club rider Lucy Otto.
First juvenile Genny Billington (Bromsgrove Olympique CC) was only half a minute slower than her PB with a 30.21 but the youngest rider, Beth Crumpton (Redditch R&PCC) actually improved on her PB to do the 10 miles in 31.23. And Beth is just 12 years old! Unfortunately our junior rider, Louise Rotheram (Wyre Forest CRC) went off course and had to record a DNF (Did Not Finish).
But this Series is not only about the fastest riders because the Series Points are based on improvements made to personal bests. In this first event, with many novice riders having no previous performance, 'Improvement to PB' was compared to a standard time of 30mins for most riders. On this basis Ros Viner won narrowly from Clare Dieppe. The 'Improvement to PB' results will settle down in future events now that the novice riders have a PB to measure against and we can start to see some real competition to achieve the greatest improvements.
Ros Viner
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It was wonderful to see four veteran women riding in the first event too. Results based on the Veteran Time Trial Association (VTTA) Standards are therefore also published for those riders. Congratulations to Karen Roberts (Stratford CC) who came closest to her standard on a very tough course.
All riders enjoyed themselves very much and this was a great start to the Series. Our sincere thanks to all members of the Bromsgrove Olympique CC who gave us a warm welcome by turning out to marshal, time-keep and push-off, and to George Barker of Beacon RCC for taking the photographs.
Full details of the Series can be found at www.midlandcc.org.uk
Beth Crumpton
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