Exeter Wheelers riders had a successful outing last weekend, four of them travelling up to Ilton in Somerset for the Team Tor closed circuit stage races.
Andrew Whittemore, Finlay Webb, Joe Sheppard and Tristan Kelsall-Spurr, arrived at RAF Merryfield in good weather and optimistic spirits.
Joe, Andrew and Tristan were riding as an Exeter Wheeler’s team in the cat 3/4 Whitelake Tor event, whilst Fin was part of a mixed clubs team in the category 1/2/3 Kalas cup.
The three man EWCC team in the White Lake event; Andrew Whittemore, Joe Sheppard and Tristan Kelsall-Spurr.
In the Whitelake, stage one was an individual time trial, involving one 5km lap of the largely flat airfield circuit. The still air made for some fast times. Tristan, who has been winning plenty of ‘fastest road bike’ prizes in SW time trials this year took full advantage of the day’s ‘Road Bikes only’ ruling to run out fastest rider, on 6 minutes 40 seconds. Four seconds slower and in 4th place Andrew was showing that after a period away from a full racing calendar he was getting back into form. New Exeter Wheeler recruit Joe Sheppard, another rider whose fitness is on the rise, completed the teams times with a 19th spot from the three dozen riders competing. All this meant that Tristan was GC leader and the team were in second place, close behind the Okehampton team of Lloyd Copp, Callum Orchard and Jonathan Hobbs.
Given that the Exeter Wheelers riders and the Okehampton CC riders knew each other well, this led to some friendly but earnest banter . . . who would come out on top in the end?
The second stage was a team time trial, with three laps of the circuit to complete, a total distance of around 15km. Sadly, things went less well here for our riders, with some pacing issues leading to the team dropping down the table a few notches, and them also losing Tristan’s GC top-spot; this went to young Callum Orchard, 19, with his Okehampton CC team increasing their lead at the top of the table.
Joe Sheppard leads the team through in the I.T.T.
The third and final stage was the cut and thrust of a bunched start circuit race. Shortly before the start, the heavens opened, making for wet and potentially hazardous racing. Tristan, Andrew and Joe felt that with OKCC likely to be riding a more cautious race, concentrating on simply retaining their leadership in the team stakes on the wet surface, it would make sense to go on the offensive in committed fashion. Andrew’s experience of road racing, and his pure power, were soon much in evidence, and early on he was able to get off the front and gap the rest of the field. With Andrew out in front, Tristan repeatedly tried to bridge across to him, but alas the OKCC trio were wise to that and closed him down each and every time, preventing the EWCC riders from forming a break. Everything came back together, and our riders were assessing their options . . . . at Andrew’s behest, Joe kept the pace high, and put in some disrupting attacks, and then, with one lap remaining Andrew hit out strongly again, and this time the move stuck; Andrew stayed away and took a much-deserved first place.
Wet wet wet – the circuit race
A first in two of the three races, and a strong showing in the team table – promising stuff, and we look forward to these three Wheelers giving us more to cheer about in SW road racing next year. And not to be outdone by her husband, Andrew’s wife Thuza made her race debut, riding in the Come and Try It Beginners race – hopefully Thuza will catch the bug….
Thuza Whittemore’s first race…..
Up a notch in the race category standards, young Fin Webb had a tougher time of things, as to be expected with the stronger riders he was competing against, and of course Fin had no EWCC team mates to join him in battle in the Kalas cup event. Fin will be looking forward to British National Para-Cycling action on the weekend of the 14th of September, when he’ll be competing in his category in the time trial up at Smeatharpe and again next day in the circuit races down at the Torbay Velopark. We wish him the best of luck.