Ben Johnson travelled to Weston Park in the West Midlands on Saturday (13th May) to compete in the XTERRA England off-road triathlon.
This consisted of a 1-mile open lake swim, 16 miles on a mountain bike and a 7-mile trail run. Ben came out of the swim 40th in his age group; he put in a strong ride in the mountain bike section to cross the line in 16th place and ended up finishing the whole event in 22nd place.
Closer to home, the Wightlink-Wight Mountain Cycle Racing Team hosted the 2nd round of the Evening TT Series at Chessell Café on Thursday (11th May). Over 60 riders signed up to take on the challenging Brook 10-mile course; conditions were good, and this led to some fast times being set on the night.
Overall winner on the night was Kev Chant (Wightlink-Wight Mountain), who powered home in 20 minutes and 4 seconds. Teammate, James Veal finished 2nd and was also the fastest Vet 40+ rider on the night, with Joe Staunton (Primera-TeamJobs) taking 3rd place just ahead of Vet 50+ rider, Simon Ambrosini (Wightlink-Wight Mountain).
Steve Taylor (NAUT Cycle Club and Race Team) continued his run of wins in the Vet 60+ category, with teammate Dominique Munday taking her 2nd win of the series. Junior rider Ewan Cook (Wightlink-Wight Mountain) took another win and a top 10 spot with Katie Bunn putting in a strong performance to beat her IOW Triathlon Club teammates.
On Tuesday (9th May), James Veal travelled to Thruxton to race in the 4th and final round of the Pronto Bikes Series. Torrential rain on the warmup lap soaked the riders and left the track extremely wet for the start. Despite this, there were a number of early attacks during the first few laps and James went solo on lap 3 and held off the sprinting bunch to take his first Prime of the season. James dug in with the greatly reduced field from the 80 starters and managed to take 7th place in the final sprint and finished 2nd overall in the points.
The team are now looking forward to hosting their first Regional A Road Race on Sunday, 21st May – with a full field of 80 top riders from local and mainland teams, the scene is set for a great afternoon of racing.
