There were significant milestones for three riders in particular today: Guy Pritchard's 150th ride; the 100th ride for Jerard Ghossein and Steff Van Amerongen. Steff marked hers with a PB and it certainly looked like she had that in mind when she took off from the start line. Ali Dyson, on the other hand, expected a PB even though she was uncertain of what sort of legs she had—last year, gear problems considerably slowed the last part of her ride home—on the small chain-ring. OK, you might be looking for the small chain-ring on those last couple of uphills but the rest of the ride back from the turn is definitely big gear stuff. And Ali's legs couldn't have been too bad as they limited her losses to Rebecca Mackey to less than a minute and brought Ali back wth the best Standards result for the morning. Bec also had a bit of bad luck to be at the turn at just the wrong time and having to give way to other traffic. There was more traffic than usual today.

Allister Caird was another rider with a clear plan in mind before he took off; he had a target of 1:07 and achieved just that at the very impressive speed of 44km/h precisely, taking the fastest-time award for the morning with a clear gap of nearly three minutes to Tom Barratt and a further two to John Sonego—both of whom posted PBs. Well done!

Out at the turn, waiting for riders, having set up the signage and the timing detector loop, were Chris Gaskell, John Ferguson and Marcel Weijers; Nat Roberts welcomed everyone earlier at the registration desk in Paddy's carpark; David Equid brought the trailer and its gear and set up the signage at the start end of the course while Lorraine sent riders on their way at regular intervals. Jeff managed all this, as usual. Thanks all, for your help and thanks, Paddy's for opening early for our convenience and for the use of your carpark.