WONDERMAN WILKO
After going to the Olympic road race and time trial and being present at the Velodrome for the final day’s excitement time to look back at two of our domestic champions recent record performances as normality returns, writes David Taylor.
Riding the CC Breckland `12` the unstoppable Andrew Wilkinson (Port Sunlight Wheelers) achieved his aim of re-taking the 12-hour competition record with a massive 317.912 miles, adding over 12 miles to the previous best, set by Jeff Jones last year.
It is the third time that Wilkinson has held the record. In 1996 he covered 300.27 miles and in 2009 he improved that to 302.46 miles.
“We scheduled for 312 miles but I was hoping to get up to around 320 miles,” Wilkinson said. But those hopes went out of the window when Wilkinson had to stop and change clothes. “It rained and I got frozen so had to stop and put on a winter jacket and then later when the sun came out had to stop again to change into dry gear. Then I punctured on the finishing circuit with about 10 minutes to go,” Wilkinson recalled.
“So I reckon all that was worth a couple of miles at least,” he added.
SHAW TIME
At the other end of the time trialling spectrum Julia Shaw (drag2zero) added the 10-mile competition record to her calling card. Riding the Bridlington CC event Shaw clocked 19-47 to trim three seconds off of the previous best of 19-50 set by Wendy Houvenaghel in 2007.
Shaw already held the 25, 50 and 100-mile competition records.
PERRETT POUNCES
Not a record, but worthy of note was Joseph Perrett’s (PCA Ciclos Uno) winning performance in the last round of the Worcester St Johns CC promoted RTTC-Rudy Project TT Series event.
Perrett covered the 32 miles in 1-10-31 putting three minutes into Matthew Bottrill and Wouter Sybrandy, who he caught.
“It was the longest time trial I have ever ridden so wasn’t too sure how I would do and I was surprised to catch Sybrandy on the second lap,” Perrett said.
Perrett has a pretty good time trialling record to say the least. He was European Junior Time Trial Champion in 2009, the same year he won both the Junior National `10` and `25` championships.
Like many of our time trialling champions he first shone in the schoolchildren’s GHS 10-mile title races, winning in 2007. He followed that with success in the Junior Circuit Championships in 2008 and 2009.
More recently Perrett finished fourth in both the `10` and `25` National Championships this year. “I didn’t start time trialling until April this year, mixing it with road racing,” Perrett said.
“I’ve spent some time racing in Belgium and have a win to my credit,” he added. “I’ll be looking to do a ride in the Circuit Championship with the hope of getting selected for the Under-23 Worlds, but whatever I’ll keep pushing on to see how far I can get,” Perrett said.