Simpkins is fast again but Wolke takes the honours

Near perfect time trial conditions greeted the 22 riders who competed in the Banbury Star CC Manners Cup Handicap 25 mile TT.

The event is for one of Star’s oldest trophies, first awarded in 1926, which in recent years has been held on the K4/25W Banbury to Gaydon B4100 course.

An event of this distance, together with a field of mixed gender, age and abilities, normally results in some big time gaps. The task therefore of regular club timekeeper Keri Williams is to look into past records and results and come up with handicaps that will produce some close amended times.

His other yardstick is the course record of 55.36 minutes. That is held by Jon Simpkins who set off on scratch and, although he set the fastest time on the night at 56.56, just one minute 20 seconds outside his record time, his corrected time put him an eventual sixth place overall.

The Star of the night however – and winner of the Manners Cup – was Wolke, who put in a great effort, particularly after she has only recently returned to riding after a long injury.

Three more women – Debbie Honour, Naomi de Pennington and Denise Shepherd – filled the next three places with very close amended times. The rest of the results illustrate how well the handicaps were calculated, with the whole field, from second to last being covered by just seven minutes.