When the handicaps were read out there were a couple of knowing smiles in the Creagan camp.  Clearly news of early 3-Peaks base training hadn’t filtered through to our resident handicapper, and The Captain quickly became the hot tip for the day starting off 6 minutes in a group of 5 with another rider of unknown current form, Cameron Scott.

Dave Jenner went off Go and would have been surprised when he was caught on lap 1 by the charging Creagan group who had shed Peter Wilkinson and Clint Burke at that point and who then had Billy in two minds whether to continue or not after PC and Cameron had pulled out a 30s gap at the half-way point.  But Billy dug deep and latched onto the 8 minute group which included the hard-charging Ben Harris, Paul Williams and Jeff Flatt in their midst.

Meanwhile, the block group of Mick Hoult, Swanny and Kirky were riding well and at a good consistent high pace, all 3 riders recording the fastest times on both laps and therefore, overall on the day.  Scratch comprised just two riders in Sam Jenner and Johnny and despite some determined chasing, they couldn’t make much of a dent in the 60 second gap which then grew on the second lap when the group they were chasing swelled in size.

With PC and Cameron both clear across the flats, victory would be decided on Dump Hill and Cameron came out on top with a good climb and strong finish to win it by 19s from Pete with the block group dragging the rest of the race over the line just 8s back led by Mick Hoult who recorded fastest time on the day.  Ben Harris grabbed a notable 6th spot with a rapid second lap, finishing  just 38s down on the day.

Thanks to Col for putting the signs out, running the race and setting the handicaps – the heavy asterisks marked against a couple of names on the results sheet indicates there may well be some adjustments there next time!

Unfortunately despite earlier promises, there are no individual out-and-back splits on each of the laps.  The motion detection camera was installed in place but frustratingly (ok stupidly) I left it in test mode, so no images at all 🙁

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