Hull Thursday rider racing in the North Yorks Moors
After recording the fastest time of the Hull Thursday quartet (Trevor, Walker, Thomas, Savage) competing at Boroughbridge in the Otley CC Open ‘10’ the day before, Jim Trevor – ‘The Hellenic Hawk’ – competed on his favourite platform, the SPOCO TT (SPOrting COurse Time Trial)…
…on Sunday 20 April 2014, in the gruelling North Yorkshire Moors National Park, taking a respectable 12th place.
The event was promoted by a rejuvenated Stockton Wheelers and was a very well-organised affair. The course (T182) was a two lap circuit around the Stokesley area on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. Like many SPOCO courses the route was undulating and included several sharp turns requiring some neat bike handing. The majority of the racing was on unclassified roads with very little traffic. The route included the crossing of an unbarriered level crossing. It was assumed that the organiser had timed the event to miss any train movements! On completion of the two laps a 19miles distance had been covered.
Jim took 12th place, covering the course in 47.23 which was within a 3 minute margin of the winner, Steven Gibson in 44:25. Although the average speed of 24.1 mph is much slower than the out and back regular RTTC courses, it is interesting to know the winner could only average 25.7mph. When racing in the North Yorkshire Moors, lower of average speeds are to be expected.
After the event HTRC website spoke exclusively to Jim who stated he was pleased with 12th place. Jim added that the other riders were almost all locals who knew the tricky roads much better than he did. Jim then commented ‘Course knowledge on this type of SPOCO TT course can be quite an advantage, as I leant in Scotland. In my second year of racing north of the border I was clawing a lot of time back on difficult roads. I think the locals may have done the same to me here’.