In October these Hounslow & District Wheelers club records
have been smashed.
Place to place records are a longstanding part of the British time
trial scene, the governing body the Road Records Association was
founded in 1888. However in recent years record attempts have been
rare - modern road conditions, particularly the huge number of
traffic lights, have made the task more difficult.
In most peoples minds this difficulty has moved on to
impossibility, but occasionally some one exceptional turns up to
challenge conventional thinking, and the Hounslow and District has
Loz Wintergold to fill this role. Loz has had a long time trial
career which has been illuminated by some flashes of brilliance,
for example when he led the Hounslow to the 12 hour team
competition record in 1997. This year he has been concentrating on
triathlon and has been honoured by selection for the Great Britain
Veterans Team for next year's World Sprint Triathlon Championships
in Turkey.
Perhaps the work he has done for triathlon has had a beneficial
effect on his cycling performances:in September an impressive ride
of 253.5 miles in the Kent CA 12 hour in spite of serious
mechanical problems gave him fourth place in the event and
confirmed him as this year's Hounslow BAR champion. It also
encouraged him to pursue his long standing ambition to attempt some
place to place records, but it was clear that some 'warm up'
experience would be necessary before attempting a national
record.
There are three levels of place to place records. At the top there
are the RRA national records-Land's End - John O'Groats is well
known, but there are many others: Land's End-London (12 hours 1
minute 37 secs), London-York (7.29.45) for example. At this level
the records are now very tough. The next level down are the RRA
regional records, for example London - Marlborough and back, which
is Loz's next target. Some of these records are old and
therefore not so unassailable as the national records. Below these
are club records: in the past when national level record activity
was more prominent most clubs had their own records, and the
Hounslow was no exception with Hounslow-Worthing and
Hounslow-Newbury.
Record breaking has often gone in phases- a record will lie
dormant, perhaps for decades and then some one realises that
because of the general increase in time trial speeds it is now
beatable and has a go. This then sparks interest among other riders
and a new phase begins. The Hounslow records were so antique
(Newbury 1937, Worthing 1946) that only this summer the racing
secretary had suggested, quite reasonably, that they should be
scrubbed from the books as obsolete and impossible under modern
traffic conditions.
And the along came Loz. With the racing season over and with the
weather conditions deteriorating rapidly he was in a hurry to
exploit his current good form before the winter set in. His
schedule would be: Worthing, Newbury then Marlborough - London,
which would, he hoped, give enough experience to tackle at least
one national record next year. It was necessary to move quickly and
the Worthing attempt was set up in a matter of hours, although this
created difficulties since none of us knew what we were doing. Our
method was basic: we would have one following car with a timekeeper
and an observer who would also deal with feeding and any necessary
mechanical support (e.g. punctures). Two problems rapidly appeared,
first that if the route has not been fully agreed (and it wasn't)
it would be easy for the car to get in front of the rider without
realising it had done so, and second, in traffic at either
end the rider was significantly faster than the car. On both
occasions the Houslow turn was covered by the observer arriving
independently and then joining the car, but the Worthing turn was a
disaster with the rider having to wait almost five minutes
(in heavy rain) for the timekeeper's car to arrive.
For the rides we followed the established practice of starting at
a convenient point along the route, turning at the nominal start
point (The Bell in Hounslow), going to the far turn(Worthing Pier,
Newbury Clock Tower) and returning to the actual start point.
The existing Worthing record was 5.43.01 for the 109 miles,
very slow by modern time trial standards, but time trials never go
near places like central Hounslow. Starting from the car park at
the foot of Box Hill at 9.23 am (Tuesday 2nd October) and turning
at The Bell at 10.12, it was soon obvious that the old record
was being annihilated. Loz arrived in Worthing at 12.42and was back
at Box Hill by 2.16 pm, making a total time of 4 hours 53 minutes.
Unfortunately our amateurish time keeping did not allow for the
seconds to be accurately recorded.
Loz described his ride as follows: "There was little wind or
traffic before Esher, then riding up the Olympic TT course to
Hampton Court gave me a buzz. I had to deal with a road closure
near The Warren which involved bunny hopping over a pipe, but the
nearest I came to real difficulty was when the south west wind
strengthened after Dorking bringing squally rainstorms which numbed
my fingers - the rain was particularly heavy at the pier where I
had to wait for the timekeeper. Once northbound the wind was
beneficial, and climbing up to Findon I found it easy to maintain
20 mph, and my speedo showed 41.5 mph on the descent. The only
point where I was struggling was the climb at Kingsfold".
The Newbury record was done on Sunday 14th October. Starting at
Paley Street (B3024) at 9 34 am, we went through Windsor and
Datchet before joining the A4 at the Colnbrook by pass. After
turning at The Bell (10.24) we retraced, getting mixed up with a
charity ride in Windsor. It was a relief to get back to the A4 at
Twyford although here wind, traffic lights and three traction
engines leading long trails of cars all caused difficulties. There
are 28 sets of lights through Reading, and then a further 23 sets
between Thatcham and the Newbury turn making, for the two way trip,
102 sets of lights. Loz rode steadily "as if I had an extra 50
miles to do, which I will need for the Marlborough record".
He was back at Paley Street by 1.53 pm: the new record, now
expertly timed by Trevor Gilbert to include the seconds: 4.19.24
for the 96 miles.
We felt this showed that the 1937 record (4.33.36) by a Mr. R.
Hall must have been a brilliant ride by the standards of the
time.
Loz's enthusiam is such that he intended to attack the London -
Marlborough record next Sunday ( 4th November), until it was
realised that the London Brighton Veteran Car run would make this
impossible. The plan now is to wait for next year.
Shamlessly stolen from http://ukcyclesport.com/results/time-trial/item/8045-place-to-place-records-2012
Written by Chris Lovibond |Published in Time Trial