Smart wins in mud at Pleinmont

ROB SMART made his move at half-distance to win round three of the Guernsey Velo Club/ Arrowsmith Marlowe Mountain Bike Summer Series. Heavy rain and thick mist turned parts of the Pleinmont headland course into soft mud, which deteriorated as the morning progressed to become thicker and very slippery.

It resembled the winter series, rather than the summer.

The elite riders took on 15 laps of the course compared with six for the sports riders and four for the under-14s.

Nick Mann set the early pace over the first half of the race but had Smart right on his wheel for company.

Smart made his move at half-distance and pulled away over the latter stages to take the win in 1-50.38.

Mann came home a comfortable second in 1-51.47 and Bob Duquemin made a welcome return to form to take third spot in 1-56.06, while Simon Rowe came home in fourth.

By far the worst conditions were suffered by the advanced category over eight laps of the course.

Jimmy Carling and Tobyn Horton set the early pace before bike problems saw Horton riding three different bikes during the race.

Carling, though, was flying and comfortably took the win in 1-00.38. James Roe rode a well-paced race and was only one minute down on Carling at the finish.

Third place went to Dan Owen in 1-03.42.

The sports race was close as John Mapley and Jack Sunderland were within sight of each other for the whole race, Mapley just taking the win by only 14 seconds, leaving Sunderland to claim the runner-up spot.

Andrew Colver came home in third.

Karl Robert was the leader for three laps of the under-14s' race only for a puncture on the last to relegate him to finish in fifth place.

Ryan Langlois was not complaining as he passed the stricken Robert to take the victory in 38.30. Second place went to Chris Norman in 39.12 leaving Joseph Holden to take third in 41.43.

The under-12s, under-10s and under-eights raced first and gained the best course conditions.

Michael Mann took the under-eights' honours, leaving frequent class winner Marco Petralia to take the runner-up spot.

The under-10s was a close affair with Stuart Sunderland just pipping Alex Wilson to the line by two seconds in the shortened-course race.

The under-12s raced over one and three quarter laps of the course, James Mapley taking the win by exactly one minute over runner-up Philip Setters.

Next to race were the elite, sports and under-14 category riders.