Iron Alex excels in fine week for team
TEAM Enable M.I. Racing Mccann riders again dominated the Friday Ev Midland mountain bike series (round three) held at Borough Hill, Daventry, Northamptonshire.
Jefferson Tear, aged 15, cruised to victory in the Youth Under-16 event, extending his lead in the overall series.
Nick Popham dominated the Over-50 event and Ryan Henry won the Over-40 race.
Lindsey Newman also extended her overall lead when winning the Ladies 50+ race and Kirby Bennett finished a close second in the Over60 event after a big problem on the first lap when branches got entangled in his gears and resulted in a long chase through the field to get up to second.
It was another mountain bike victory for Nick Whitley, this time at Manchester in midweek, where he won the Over-50s race and finished second overall in the whole event against much younger riders.
Two of the Enable team have been preparing for the Austrian Iron Man event next month.
They competed in a training weekend which consisted of a 10km Saturday morning run followed by a mega sprint triathlon consisting of a 900m swim 19-mile bike ride and 4.5-mile run – and the following morning a half-iron Man!
Greg Ashley was first in his age group in the 10km run, then ended up eighth overall, and again first in his age group in the overall title
A very hard weekend’s training, which bodes well for the Iron Man.
Greg is a very experienced ultra triathlon competitor and he will be joined at the event in Austria with team-mate Zoe Shepherd, from Dunchurch.
With the second fastest time in the midweek 25-mile time trial, organised by Leamington C & A.C., Enable’s Andy Oliver beat one hour for the distance for the first time.
Andy recorded 59mins 59secs – you can’t get much closer to one hour than that – and team-mate Andy Jackson was not far behind with 1hr 20secs. The event took place over three laps of the very tough Bubbenhall Weston Princethorpe circuit.
Team Enable entered two teams in the cycling time trial national 3-up team championship, which took place on the Southam to Banbury Road, in South Warwickshire.
Because of the low numbers of entries, the team entered two teams to give the event more local support (Rugby Velo were the only other local team to enter). They used it as a training exercise – Rob O’connor, Andy Jackson and Zoe Shepherd finished with a time of 1hr 4mins 43secs and the faster team of Mark Wise, Andy Oliver and Greg Ashley 53mins 46secs. Only 23 teams entered the championship.
Once again a brilliant week’s racing for the team, in events around the UK.
Entries for the BMCR National Handicap Road Champs, sponsored by Enable, at Napton on Sunday June 25 have now reached 60 and over. First prize will be a championship jersey –plus medals for first 3 riders, plus £100 for the winner, £75 for second, £50 for third, with prizes down to 10th place.
The event is organised by Mick Ives for Team Enable. Entries are still being taken via Rider HQ.