Not so many people ventured out to September’s segment. Perhaps they were put off by the complicated lottery of trying to time their ride to avoid the two level crossings? Those who did were rewarded with some beautiful Hampshire countryside on a nice little circuit around the Tytherleys.
Jen Dawson was once again the only female rider and maintains her 100% record. Nobody can catch her, either on the road, or in our leaderboard. But maybe some other female riders might venture out to give her some competition in the remaining two months?
Will Weynberg took the top step (and the segment KoM) in the open competition. He shares the podium with Tim Cooke and Jon Hall. In the v50s+, Tim Cooke showed some late season form to take first position; Jon Hall rode into second, and Jon Dudley made a welcome return from injury to take third.
Now we’re six months into the competition, the open leaderboard has a clear shape: Jon Hall has clear water from Tim Cooke and Niclas Olley, with Phil Banks and James Peckham hard on their heels. It’s nearly the same in the v50s+, with Jon leading Tim and then Paul Macken. However, the “discard” system will come into play now. Only the top 6 results count across the 8 month competition, so there’s still a little bit of shaking up to be done.
Full results are viewable at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uGV6bqDiD42i7wAZL_wz0hUnxRECrNPIhlA69cDwR88/edit?usp=sharing
And the first of that shaking up will be on next month’s segment, A35 – east gate junction. We head back to the Forest, this time for a long 7km climb with continuously changing gradients. You’ll need to pace this one well.
If you fancy testing yourself over the last couple of months in the competition, you can find details of how to enter at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X9qj0sm8PzXs28y-PRitkUHC4vuXSIUQmwf9Vjs8PeI/edit?usp=sharing
Tim