12th October 2025
Today was the team trial organised by …a3crg to celebrate 25 years of time trials, myself and Trevor decided in the summer that we would do this and Tom was really keen to do this with Phil.
Although I wasn’t right at the start of a3crg when it was formed after rother valley cycle club, I was one of the early ones on my ribble road bike, more on my memories later.
The team trial was actually a good motivation to try and get fit and managed a few hard rides with the Square Wheelers & Trevor, however it did become quite apparent that I was going to struggle hanging onto Trevor’s wheel.
Tom was driving from Cardiff the night before and we had time to put on his road tyres, only 1 split inner tube!
Sunday morning the three of us rode up to the HQ at Rake, it felt strange putting on a race number after all these years, plus it was Tom’s first timetrial! We were off at 08:42, with Phil & Tom 8 minutes later. The original course past Hollycombe wasn’t ready due to roadworks and it was the old hardriders course with the Rogate loop in the middle, so still a tough course.
08:42 came and we were off with me starting off on the front but quickly swapping over, by the time we got to the top of the hill at Rake I was in the red and the ticker was having one of it’s flutter moments, riding down the old a3 I knew I had to get this under control and thankfully it calmed down, we soon passed our 2 minute markers and by the time we reached the a272 they had overtaken us and started to be a bit annoying, I had a word and they backed off. A272 was okay and it was soon on to the Rogate climb, this was another case of managing the effort and it was good to see John Clark, John Hepper & Drew out on the course near the top. Once at the Jolly Drover we sped back into Sheet and around the roundabout and back down the hill, the drag up the old a3 was hard going and had to keep reeling Trev back in, once at Rake it was fast all the way to the finish.
We managed a respectable 50:19 finishing in 9th place with Phil & Tom in 48:11 and finishing in 5th place. I must admit I thought they would finish 3 or 4 minutes in front of us and it sounds like that Tom had a tough time staying with Phil.
DCB, Mike Boyce had put together a great celebration with a cooked breakfast for everyone and commemorative glasses as prizes.
Great event especially catching up with old faces and particularly proud of the boys.
