Hard-starting Bleasdale clocks second best time

TONY BLEASDALE underlined his good form this season by winning the Guernsey Velo Club's 25-mile time trial held on the L'Eree course. Bleasdale finished in a time of 57min. 45sec., his second fastest time over the distance.

Hard-starting Bleasdale pulled out almost two minutes on second-placed Graham Le Maitre, but a solid second-half ride saw the latter cut the deficit. However, Le Maitre still finished more than one minute down.

Ann Bowditch won the woman's race, in a time of 62-31.

Bowditch has three weeks remaining until the National Circuit Championships and is fine-tuning her late season form with some good performances recently.

Tracey Dowington set a personal best, knocking more than 30 seconds off her previous standard.

Dowington has found the change from running to cycling a challenge, but has made some very good improvements over the season.

The battle in the over-60s category is hotting up, with Dave Lancaster taking the honours from Allan Renyard. Both just missed out on the elite standard, but will be pleased with their day's work.

Nathan Baudains shows no signs of slowing down.

The ever-improving youngster is getting faster by the race and stormed round the course to finish in a very impressive eighth place overall.

Under-14 riders James Cameron and Gary Robert contested a five-mile time trial, with Cameron edging the encounter by 12 seconds.

Robert, more at home on the mountain bike, uses the road races for additional fitness and is reaping the benefits in both disciplines.

Conditions were poor, with a strong north-westerly wind, but this did nothing to heed Terry Wright and Dave Gallienne's assault on the over-45's two-up record. The pair smashed the record by nearly nine minutes, finishing with a very fast 56-54.

Wright has taken part in only a handful of races this season, but is looking on form for the French two-up race, held in Normandy at the start of September.