30-Jul-77
30-Jul-77
| Richmond & Darlington Open '25' |
JUST 77 seconds away from national competition record, Whitley Bay's Mick Bradshaw set the fastest local 25-mile time trial performance of the season to win Saturday's Richmond and Darlington promotion at Catterick.
Bradshaw, now established as one of the country's leading short-distance time triallists, covered the A1 course in 52min l7sec.
From an original entry of 90 riders, 30 produced personal best performances and all but seven recorded times inside the hour.
Even the rising north-west wind could do little to reduce the late-starting Whitley Bay man's complete domination of the event, as he established a 1min l3sec advantage over Solihull's Ray Gill.
Third-placed Dave Beaumont led the Rutland club's 2.44-55 aggregate to the team award with his 54-6.
Among those with greatly improved performances were two Stockton Wheelers, Ron Wood and junior Paul Curran. Curran, with a midweek improvement in the Harrogate middle-marker event already under his belt, covered the course in 55-18.
The big gear philosophy of Wood paid off, reducing his 57 minutes previous-best to 54-30 which put him into sixth place.
1. Mick Bradshaw (Whitley Bay) 52-17
2. Ray Gill (Solihull) 53-30
3. Dave Beaumont (Rutland) 54-06
6. Ron Wood (Stockton Wh) 54-30
Paul Curran (Stockton Wh) 55-18