Report from the very wet race!!

 The latest round of the Velo series was held on an undulating circuit of 5.5 miles in what turned out to be horrible wet conditions – it rained throughout the race, only the intensity of the rain varied.

 Not surprisingly the conditions led to a smaller field than usual although the Witham Wheelers were again well represented with  Carol Milne in Group 2, Dave Moulds, Crispin Bridges-Webb, Tony Mendham and Phil Etches in Group 4, Martin Milne, Gary Rands and John Farmer in Group 5 and Paul Conneelly in Group 6.

 It was a case of surviving to a degree with a fair number of punctures, including Martin Milne and John Farmer. The Groups had to ride well together and Groups 4, 5 & 6 came together with 2 laps to go and had to continue riding to try and catch the earlier Groups. Some lone riders who had lost contact with their Group were picked off

Paul Conneelly made an attack off the front of Groups 4,5 & 6 on the last lap and no-one else had the legs to go with him or try to chase him down. It wasn’t until well into the last lap that the earlier Groups were caught. Only one rider from Group 3 managed to hang onto Paul Conneelly as he went past and Paul was able to win comfortably overall.

 The Witham Wheelers made up the majority of the top 10 places including, Paul Conneelly , Gary Rands, Phil Etches, Dave Moulds, Crispin Bridges-Webb and Tony Mendham.

 Dave Moulds won Group 4, Gary Rands Group 5 and Paul Conneelly Group 6 as well as the overall.

 It seems that a number of riders suffered on Monday from ‘delicate stomachs’ and probably didn’t move too far from suitable facilities!!