PTW

"Sunny intervals and a gentle breeze"

Still a bit cool at 14C but I think we'll all take that, eh?

Please be aware that there was a lot of tree debris on the road from last weeks high winds and some of it may still be at the road edge. I'll drive up from Ynysygerwn and give you a sitrep on the night.

The roadworks on the A465 might mean that some locals migrate to the back road but by race time this should be just a handful of extra cars.

R10/23 ‘BACK ROAD’ COURSE DESCRIPTION

R10/23 START on the B4242 Old Vale of Neath Road at the entrance to F.E. Chick just north-east of Rheola Pond. Proceed south-west on the B4242 to Resolven junction. Continue south-west on the B4242 passing through Abergarwed village and Ynysarwed village to the ‘Rock and Fountain’ hill, climb and continue to TURN with care at the break in the dual-carriageway opposite the Groundhog factory at Ynysgerwen, SA10 8HH (5.0 miles).

Descend hill and retrace route north-eastwards along the B4242 through Ynysarwed village and Abergarwed village. Continue north-eastwards through Resolven junction and past Rheola Pond to FINISH directly opposite the start.

BehnazSays by Alf Williams, on Flickr

2021.10 by Alf Williams, on Flickr

All in all it was a cracking night's racing with some SB's and some PB's for the back road course. Emma Davies got us underway and she was delighted with her time that was over three minutes off her opening ride on this course. Emma was caught though by Stephen Morgan who also leapt forward and crashed under the '30' barrier. John Sheehan didn't just get under '30' he also got under '29' with a fine 28:46 - well done John.

Hollie just nipped under the '28' mark this week with a 27:59 a good ride after a three-week break. Matt Jones made his PTW club event debut with a solid 29:14 and was just caught before the line by comeback king John Pritchard who impressively started his club event season with a short '26' to finish 8th. I'm also impressed by Tony Howell's first club event of the season - a 26:17 which lifted him to 9th place and took the PTW midfield win. Also riding his first club event of the season was Darren Edwards who took the maximum road bike points with a 25:12 and finished 6th on the night - nice one Dazzer.

We welcomed back Clayton Evans of CC Blaenau Gwent who was competitive with a 25:44 and there's more to come in future weeks. There was a competitive tussle between Les Thomas and Mike Broadbent with Mike just shading it this week. At the sharp end of the bike race we had Mike Hall finishing in 5th with a 24:08 whilst our top four had a familiar look with Dylan Sage (snugly dispatched mid-pack) matching his back road PB of 23:37 and our top 3 all knocking out very short 23's with Nicky Morgan getting the shortest of all to score a hat-trick of wins - well done Nicky! It's very competitive at the top and those three names and positions will almost certainly be interchangeable with such close margins.

Alfie's 'man of the match' is a tough one and whilst all agreed that John Sheehan's ride was a good result considering he's missed some racing (but still went forward) you really can't argue with a 3:18 beating of her SB on the back road so well done to Emma Davies. As always, thanks to Dai Triggs for admin support and time-keeping and also to Martin Sage for marshaling at the turn.

PTW road Jersey left in Alf's car. I'm away on holiday next week so you may have to wait a fortnight.