Good weekend for Sigma

Good weekend for the sigma team with 3 victories in the form of Dan Duguid @ hillingdon, a three up time trial by myself, Steve Golla and Wouter, and today by Gary Dodd who sprinted away from his breakaway companions to take a victory at the Thames Velo Road Race against a top quality field.

Antelope RT 3 up TTT

Dry conditions greeted all the competitors for that 50km 3 up team time trial promoted by Antelope RT. Riding for the Sigma team was myself (Andrew), and Steve and Wouter who have both been in hot form against the clock with time trial victories in the last couple of weeks. With both my companions being somewhat time trial specialists (Wouter finishing 2nd at the BTTC (Espoirs) and Steve 7th overall in the highly prized best all rounder competition last year) I was always going to be in for a hard day. They also both came geared up on full TT set ups and I put myself at a further bit of a disadvantage beforehand by riding a conventional spoked wheel. Five minutes in these two had already put me deep into the pain zone! When early into the second lap my tri bars came loose (hanging on by the gear cables), this meant Wouter and Steve rode the second lap pretty much as a 2up with me hanging on behind with my now useless tri bars busy trying not to get them caught in my front wheel. Despite losing some of the advantage we'd built up over the first lap we held on for a good victory beating some of the quickest teams in the country and narrowly missing out on the course record by about 20 seconds. As I am sure you can gather from my report I can take little credit in this win, and in this kind of form both my companions are sure to go well whenever they race against the clock.

1 Sigma Sport 01:06:16

2 Shorter Rochford RT 01:06:28

3 Arctic Premier 01:08:16

Today at the Thames Velo road race was a difficult one both of the racing and also in terms of getting the clothing right as we enjoyed sunshine, rain and hail throughout the 75 miles of racing.

I put in lots of silly little digs to try and get into a break, and in the process tired myself out a fair bit for when the crucial point of the race came. Team mate Gary Dodd however stormed to a great win from a break group of about 9 that started the sprint with only a 50m advantage from the main group. In a dicey sprint I got switched by the Bean Pole again and also today by his team mate all within the space of a few metres, again there was no need for it as they were both sprinting with a clear road ahead of them, very aggressive / dangerous sprinting and probably wont be long before they really hurt themselves or someone else again with ridiculous moves like that!