Bowditch makes history

FOURTEEN years after taking up cycling through mountain biking, Ann Bowditch has achieved a long sought after goal, a sub-one-hour 25-mile time trial in Guernsey.

And in clocking 59min. 59sec. in the final event of the Guernsey Velo Club road season, she became the first woman locally to break the hour in the blue riband event of time trials. Bowditch has ridden sub-hour rides in the UK but Guernsey courses are known to be slower, making the average 25mph ride more difficult to achieve.

Bowditch said she uses very few tools to gauge her performance. Over the early stages of the race, Bowditch was looking comfortable and by the eight- mile mark it was clear she was gaining on riders who had started in front of her.

'I ride to a combination of feel and use my heart-rate monitor a little in the early stages. I don't have speed or cadence on view.'

The next time Bowditch looked at her watch was as she approached Albecq with the finish at Vazon nearly in sight. 'I saw I had exactly two minutes to get to the finish and thought it would be a very tight call.'