Mills-Keeling and Tudor strike to bag the county spoils

A quarter of an hour before the start ominous clouds formed above Ellerdine before throwing down everything they had from hail to torrential rain, causing the roads to become awash with standing water and spray, but which allowed easy passage through the air for many riders, some reporting fastest ever season-opening 10’s.

A significant number of visiting riders took advantage of the early start in the county and made up half the field.

And one of those, Fibrax-Wrexham’s Ben Lloyd, took a fine victory in 20 minutes 45 seconds.

But taking the maximum 20 county points on offer in both overall and veterans’ categories was Bridgnorth CC’s Jonathan Mills-Keeling .

Mills-Keeling was the 2022 overall silver medallist and veterans’ champion, and he set out with a personal best effort in his goal to go one better in the former and hold on to the latter.

Posting a time of 21:34 to see off the attentions of Velotik’s Peter Lindfield, Mills-Keeling was happy with his form.

“It just started to rain riding to the start. It was very wet and grim, but I paced evenly, and was happy with a personal best on the course for the first 10 of the year,” he said.

Mills-Keeling enjoyed a dominant win in the veterans’ with his +5:17 beating Ruthin CC’s Sally Cunliffe by 22 seconds.

The women’s event saw victory for another visiting rider as Keri Parton, of Team Boompods, won comfortably by over three minutes and finished a strong seventh overall.

Parton crossed the line in 23:02 and declared it was a great start to her season.

“Super happy to start my time trial season with a win despite the biblical rain falling, making us all question our weekend plans,” she said.

“I’m looking forward to racing this course later in the year as it should be quick on the right day.

“Big thanks to all the volunteers, there is a brilliant cycling community in Shropshire, where the club scene is still strong and the sole reason we have so many great events.”

Taking the maximum 20 points on offer in the SB women’s category was SCCA chair Helen Tudor, with another best effort as she took advantage of the favourable conditions to post 26:37.

The Oswestry Paragon rider took women’s bronze last year but has an early lead to defend.

She said: “Great to catch up with everyone and get back to racing. It wouldn’t be the Spring Series without a hailstorm, but light winds made it surprisingly quick – my best ever first 10 of the season, so a good start.”

It was a straight head-to-head in the SB Junior Series with 10 seconds separating the reigning junior champion Ben Southgate from North Shropshire Wheelers’ Chester Romei, the 2022 junior silver medallist.

Southgate recorded a fine effort of 23:46 to finish ninth overall, but revealed that the margin could have been greater.

“I thought it was going really well up until the island where I got caught in traffic, but I still pushed all the way to the end to get the junior win,” he said.