Riding into the unknown

ANN BOWDITCH is up against Great Britain's best riders this weekend. Guernsey's national hillclimb champion is in Chester for tomorrow's national 10-mile time trial championship.

'It is difficult to set targets having never competed in a 10-mile TT at national level before,' Bowditch said.

'I do know that the top women are in very good form and a lot of them have moved up a level, which is what I am aiming to do.

'I think a top 10 finish would be a very good result looking at the riders who will be there and the level they are at. Competition is very tough.'

But the event being a time-trial, Bowditch at least won't have to put up with the roughhouse tactics that undid her male GVC colleagues in Wales last weekend.

In preparation for the Island Games in Shetland, five of the men's cycling squad competed in the three-stage L'Etape de la Defonce stage race in Cowbridge, Glamorgan.

The 1,143-mile race over two days attracted a field of 76 riders and the team put in good performances in the first two stages.

It was in the last stage, a 45-mile road race on the hilly roads around Gilfach Goch and the Rhondda Valley, that the Welsh riders used dangerous tactics on the Sarnians

The Welsh riders muscled the Sarnians over the side of the central road line that would result each time in a 30sec. penalty from the race referee, who was following in a car.

'I got six strikes against me and every strike is 30sec.,' said disappointed island coach Paul Brehaut.

'Terry Wright also got six and Rob Smart got three. They would mark out whom they wanted out of the race and they would shove you out a bit.

'We were very calm and pretty polite, but it is a naughty tactic,' Brehaut added.

With only 37 sec. separating the first 20, these penalties proved very costly, as did the Guerns' lack of knowledge of the course.

The Guernsey trio all lost time on the twisting narrow descents that the locals were able to take at more than 55mph. As a result, in the final miles, the race split in two and they found themselves in the second group.

The Guernsey trio had held the race leaders at three minutes, but they could not claw back the lost time on the technical part of the course.

The earlier stages of the race had gone better for the greens.

On the first, a 61-mile road race, Smart and Chris Le Page finished in the top 10.

The second stage saw the riders tackle a 7.4-mile team time trial, with the Guernsey Velo Club B team placing fourth in a time of 19-21 that was just 22sec. behind the winning team of Stratford CC.

After the second stage Smart, Wright and Brehaut were all lying in equal 10th.

But after the disastrous third Le Page and Stuart Le Tissier were the best placed Guernsey riders, finishing in 23rd and 27th overall.

Matthew Beckett, a former professional rider, won the race, in 4-55.22, with Le Page and Le Tissier finishing 2.51 and 3.14 behind the winner respectively.

The GVC ended up ninth of the 19 competing teams, with Smart finishing sixth in the points competition.

Despite the incidents of the third stage, Brehaut saw the trip as a good warm-up for Shetland.

'It worked really well,' he said.

'The team worked well and they bonded well together.

'It was just a shame that Terry and I had so much time put on us.'