It’s been a busy week for the Kids (and Vets) of TPH Racing this week. Everybodies A races for the week was obviously the “Trinity World Champs” on Wednesday with the first round of SCRS at Trinity Park. That didn’t stop the team from getting out there and smashing out some TT, CX and Zwift racing also.
Starting with the big cheese. Now we are deep into the IRL racing season Rob was feeling bad about neglecting his Zwift setup so jumped on 3 early morning Zwift races this week. The end result is he’s regained 2nd place in the ZwiftPower TPH Racing team standings, jumping ahead of Keeds by a few points. This might prove enough of an incentive to get Keeds back on Zwift to re-challenge for 2nd and make the jump to 100 Zwift races completed. Nothing like a wagging a bone in front of a dog!
Heavy legs after the weekends Videre RR meant Keeds needed to spin them out on Tuesday at the latest round of IDCA TT series at Battisford. A mid 25 meant 4th Roadie and Top Non-IDCA rider. At the same time Adam, Molly, Alex and Jack were tackling the 2nd round of the Maglia Rosso CX summer series. Adam struggled with a poor equipment choice of file treads on wet grass… but still managed 2nd. Molly matched Adam with 2nd, whilst Alex and Jack came 3rd in their categories. Podiums all round. Yay!
Wednesday night was Trinity World Champs night. 7 of the team turned up for a dig at the local crit spectacle. Alex was first up in the U14 Boys. A race long 3 up battle with a close finish had Alex coming out 2nd. Alex is taking great strides this season, seemingly growing in power, endurance and confidence week by week. Awesome ride!
The Mens 3/4 race was next with Adam, Ryan and Keeds going for TPH Racing. Much laughter was had as “Old Man” Keeds had to adorn his helmet with the “Vets 50+” blue sticker. Adam got off lightly with the slightly less hurtful “Vets 40+” orange sticker… A small early break got away and Adam bridged midway through and they stayed away to contest the finish. Ryan as sitting comfortably in the second group, whilst Keeds was marking V50 rival Steve de Boltz in the 3rd. Good work saw the two chasing groups join together. At the start of the final lap Ryan had a dig off of the front of the chasers and managed to hold the gap till the line to come in a brilliant 6th. Ahead of him Adam had led things out but some robust cornering saw him slide down the finishers to a great but slightly disappointing 4th. After marking his target all race Keeds lost that wheel in the melay of the last lap and rode in 16th but 2nd Vet 50.
The Women's race with Becky, Lucy and Molly was handicapped with small groups going off at intervals due to differing levels of riders. It made for an interesting race for the riders trying to catch the next group or keep ahead of trailing group. It made things a little difficult for spectators to follow but they were certainly entertained with some fast and strong racing by all the women. Becky rode aggressively and finished strongly in her group to come 6th, Lucy after riding most of the race with TPH regular Trudy Avis came in 12th. Molly having missed a lot of riding lately due to exams rode mainly a solo TT and finished 13th.
No rest for the wicked meant Thursday saw the shop ride and the CCS TT Series. The shop ride was a severely reduced affair due to the weather forecast and conditions. Molly and Alex however were undeterred and once again took to the Brent Eleigh course. After the previous nights hour long TT Molly struggled to post a good time for her but hopefully she is now getting back into the swing of riding. Alex posted another PB only to later find he had been DQ’d due to some unintentional drafting. You live and learn and it will only make him more determined to improve.
Great riding and racing!
#rideon
Cracking photos of Trinity World Champs by Nick Flexman
