Cherry Valley riders are the dominant force

Birdwell Wheelers 10 - 16/07/2005 - Course O10/2

Ian Dalton led the Cherry Valley team to 3 top 7 placings from a full field of 120 riders in the Birdwell Wheelers 10 at Ranby in Nottinghamshire on Saturday 16th July.

With Ian taking his best victory of the season so far and one of the fastest 10 times recorded this year he crossed the finish line in a scorching time of 19.46, closely followed by Andy Moore in 4th place and Gareth Williams in 7th.

Covering 10 miles from Ranby to Blyth roundabout and back again on the A1 in Nottinghamshire, the course is renowned for being one of the fastest in the country.
On a day that was far from perfect, a strong North Westerly breeze was blowing down the course making the outward leg to the turn tough and with the sun shining the temperature had risen to 25C by the time the race had started.

Starting at 5.55pm, Gareth was the first of the Cherry Valley riders to start and struggled to keep the speed high as the wind battered him from his left hand shoulder whilst heading up to the 5 mile turn at Blyth. Once at the turn the wind was behind Gareth who then managed to keep the speed well above 30mph for the remainder of the race. With Andy Moore starting just 5 minutes behind Gareth, they crossed over on the course on he Blyth by-pass and Andy looked to be getting power out of the pedals well as there was little time difference between Gareth and Andy.

Over the last 3 miles Gareth buried himself giving it all his effort and with top gear rolling well he crossed the finish line in a time of 21.07. Just five minutes later, teammate Andy Moore also came flying over the brow of the hill to cross the finish line in a time of 20.50.

With team mate Ian starting nearly an hour later than Andy and Gareth, the Cherry Valley pair were give Ian their experiences of their race and how the course was riding.

With some pre-race knowledge in hand, Ian got on top of the time trial early and set a scorching pace that never dropped off and averaging over 30mph for the 10 mile course, Ian crossed the finish line in a time of 19.46 to beat pre-race favourate and National Champion Sam Barker (API Metrow) into second place by 5 seconds.

Please and surprised with his ride this was Ian’s second fastest ever 10 mile time but in contrast Andy was feeling a little jaded and disillusioned before the start which put his time back and would normally have been much closer to Ian. Meanwhile, Gareth was also pleased with his ride even though he now has a chest infection and had just started a course of antibiotics.