Bank holiday cycling

5:27pm Tuesday 13th May 2008

The Maldon & District Cycling Club made its mark in the Eastern Counties Cycling Association Festival over the bank holiday weekend. Covering a range of competitive and non-competitive disciplines, the festival was promoted for its 31st year and was hotly contested by cycling clubs in the Essex area.

First event of the weekend was a 10 mile time trial near Newport in northern Essex. The Maldon club fielded six riders, all of which left the event smiling due to Neil Chapman taking the win with 22m 34s. Steve Saunders took ninth place with 23m 44s. Of the other Maldon riders, Paul Sexton recorded 26m 15s, Sam Connolley clocked 26m 41s and Kev and Keely Bunton recorded 28m 15s and 29m 12s respectively.

The following day the festival moved over to High Easter, with the main event of the festival being the 85 mile Road Race Championship. The 70 starters hit the road fast and before the first hour was over, a group of 16 riders, including Neil Chapman had broken away from the main bunch.

After a further two hours hard effort consolidating this lead, some frantic attacking saw the front group fracture into two equal halves with Chapman in the front group.

Working hard to stay away, this group approached the final few miles in the secure knowledge that the winner would come from them. In a sport where wins often come from speculative do or die efforts, Chapman attacked hard to escape from the front of this bunch in the final two miles. But he was pulled back in the final few seconds of the race to come home eighth in a race take by Wildside's Chris McNamara.

Steve Saunders came home 25th in the main bunch, with Mark Beattie rolling home just behind him in the same group. Beattie's performance should not go unnoticed as he has been sidelined for almost six weeks due to an ongoing chest infection. While most would return to competition in something like a short time trial, to ride and successfully complete a long distance road race is a remarkable feat.

In the supporting race held at the same time, Gary Wood was in what looked like being the break of the day, but was closed down just before the final lap leaving Wood to come home in the main bunch.

The afternoon's 25 mile time trial saw Chris York lead the Maldon contingent with 1hr 3min 49sec supported by Steve McDonald in 1h 4m 1s, Graham Roper in 1h 10m 41s and Sue Wood with 1h 13m 41s. The same day saw Maldon's Nick and Angie Manley take second in the map reading competition.

Monday morning's first event was a 2-up 25 mile time trial. There were many tired legs due to racing the previous day, but those belonging to Neil Chapman and Steve Saunders were perhaps the most fatigued as they formed the only complete team of riders who had both completed the previous day's road race. Their time of 56min 37sec to take second place to the 56m 05s of API paring of Kev Chambers & Paul Haggerty was an exceptional effort. Also riding was the team of Paul Gregory and Keely Bunton who were delighted with their time of 1hr 8m 42s.

The short distance seven kilometre race, introduced only a few years ago saw Chris York clock 10m 20s for 11th place, followed up by 14 year old Sam Connolley in 11m 02s in a race won by Chelmer's Anthony Stapleton in 9m 26s The final event of the day, a 10 mile time trial for solo riders and tandems saw Connolley in action again to clock 26m 37s. This race also saw the return to competition of Dave Tyas who suffered a serious spinal injury almost a year ago. His time of 27m 28s shows he is now back in business. The tandem pairing of Chris Ridley and Rebecca Hammond returned a time of 26m 54s to round off the weekend.The festival's club competition, which relies more on club participation than results, saw Maldon & District take equal fifth place from 34 clubs. Overall winner was the Chelmer Cycling Club on whose home territory almost all of the events took place.

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