Vipers Evening TT Mid-season 25

Whilst the weather remains stubbonly spring-like, it is infact already halfway through our evening 10 season. As always we try to mix things up at this point with a mid season 25 mile TT (held on the same course, just with different start and finish locations). For a large proportion of the 29 strong start list, this was their first 25 mile time trial (easy chance for a PB) and the weather gods blessed the race with a dry and wind free evening. 

As has been the case all season, Fred Barlow and Olly Beale were almost inseperable, finishing within 40 seconds of eachother as they both rode PBs on their way to winning the Junior and Juvenile categories respectively. Ramsey Kechacha, riding this 25 course for the 3rd time this year finished with the fastest time, with Phil Hodey finishing as runner up in his 3rd race in just 5 days! Bob Pisolkar, fresh off a weekend of MTB action at Beastway rode to the 3rd fastest time as well as taking the VTTA win in a fantastic 58:48. Richard Parrotte took a break from his 500km training rides to race his first evening TT of 2024 and snuck the handicap win by just 9 seconds from JJ Lorraine.

As the regular 10 mile TT returns for round 12 next week, the season long competitions are hotting up and there are some serious battles developing in a few categories; The Junior points looks to be one to watch, as Isabel Beale and Will Barlow sit just 3 points apart, meanwhile in the Women's handicap competition Sarah Wenham and Debbie Coyle are locked in a very tight race for glory. Finally, with his performance this week, Fred Barlow has taken a slender lead in the rooad bike points competition over Mark Thurlow, but he will need to continue to be consistent over the rest of the season to maintain that.

As ever, the photograph accompanying this article was provided by Martin Cooper (@omnirocker on Instagram). Martin volunteers his time to come along to lots of evening 10 and local club events and take photos which he then provides for our membership. The pictures are always of an absolutley fantastic quality and perfectly capture the pain, suffering and emotion of a hard TT! As a club we are incredibly grateful for what he does and we would just like to express on behalf of all members, our thanks to Martin.