North Road Hardriders - Sunday 25th February

Fri 03 Aug 2007

Report from Bob Wade 

While the stars of British track cycling were still wrapped up warm in bed this Sunday February 25, eighty-five time triallists braved the heavy rain in this year’s North Road CC ‘Hardriders’ event kicking off the season’s time trial calendar.

The combination of an unrelenting hilly course climbing over 25 miles of twisty country lanes in Hertfordshire just twenty or so miles due north of central London and the fickle weather give the event its name. Previous years have seen sub zero temperatures, the course having to be shortened due to some lanes being completely covered in sheet ice, and one year it was cancelled due to a freak snow storm that gave over 15cm of snow in just twenty minutes. However, this year the temperatures soared to just over 6 degrees centigrade while the early rain relented slightly into more sporadic showers.

Seeing the names of Richard Prebble, Peter Tadros, Pete Bissell and Matthew Bottrill on the start sheet would not surprise any other time trialist or competitor in this event, but finding the brothers Sean and Christian Yates in the same list must have amazed some people. Sean Yates first won the event in 1979, that’s before some of this year’s competitors were born or could even probably ride a bike, and then again in 1997. Would Sean Yates, the hard hard man of British cycling, now 46 and fresh from various Discovery team training camps achieve a triple victory on the tenth anniversary of his last win?

Sean Yates certainly put in a spirited ride grinding a seemingly enormous gear up Essenden Hill and managed to win both the veterans (on standard) prize in a time of (1:02:50), and the team prize (fastest three riders count) with his brother Christian and fellow In-Gear Quickvit RT member Peter Tadros. Yates also came seventh overall just losing out on sixth place to brother Christian by 11 seconds.

Despite the rain and heavily water-logged roads the overall winner, Richard Prebble (Pinarello RT), managed a sub hour time of 59:45 which is a good time for this course and just nudged Tadros in to second place by 9 seconds. Third place went to Andy Proffitt (Artic-Shorter Rochford RT) at 1:00:28. Pete Bissell also of Artic-Shorter Rochford RT and one of this year’s favourites to win had to make do with fifth place (1:02:04) after having to stop to refit his saddle that was in danger of falling off after it came loose.

The fastest woman was Helen Boatman of Finsbury Park CC (1:13:18) while North Road CC rider Leigh Harvey who holds the club’s records for the woman’s 10, 25 and 50 mile TT's did not finish due to a puncture.

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