4th and 11th places for Cherry Valley pair

Spalding 25 - 26/06/2005 - Course C25/6

Andy Lintin has started to find his racing legs once again in the Spalding 25 where he placed 4th on Sunday 26th June. Andy has started the long road back to find some form once again after a difficult few weeks which has seen work commitments effect his racing performances but with a stronger ride in the Spalding event, Andy is now back on track and will hopefully be feeling much stronger by next weekend when he joins team mates Ian and Andy Moore for the national team time trial. Meanwhile team mate Sam Tuplin also rode the event and finished a very creditable 11th despite using Aarons bike which certainly felt strange to him.

The event was run off on similar roads to the LRRA 25 the previous week with the start further South of Donnington village. The riders then rode through Donnington to then turn at Osbournby roundabout before retracing to finish near the start area. Although the day was not as hot and there was very little wind, nearly all the riders that had ridden the week before found it harder and subsequently slower.

After recent below par performances by Andy Lintin, he managed to put a stronger ride together today and was significantly quicker than the week before. Finishing less than a minute behind event winner Chris O'Rourke from Alford Wheelers who was fourth in the LRRA 25, Andy finished with a time of 59.21 which saw him claim 4th spot overall. Although Andy would have expected to win this event with the form he had shown all season upto a month ago, he was still pleased he was heading in the right direction again and his form had stopped slipping and he could only go better from now on.

Meanwhile, Sam Tuplin was struggling to get to grips with his bike as he was forced to use Aarons time trialling machine and he found it hard to get used to the position and in particular the handle bar setup. Hopefully this situation will be remedied soon when Sam takes delivery of his new time trialling bike. Despite Sam feeling uncomfortable and struggling with Aarons bike, he still forced the pedals around to finish with a time of 1.1.53 which gave Sam 11th place on the day.

With Andy joining team mates Ian and Andy Moore next weekend for the national team time trial based on a course near Boston, Sam has no excuses as he gets to ride his favoured road bike when he joins Gareth in the Gerry Thurlow Road Race at Spridlington on the Sunday.