ROB Hogg, McKinlays 1st Chard Wheelers’ leading junior rider, Rob Hogg, travelled to Belgium over Easter with coach John Hughes for a long weekend of racing and to watch the professionals in one of the Ardennes classics.

Hogg, who is still only 16 but competes at Under-18 level, tackled a 2½ hour circuit race against 86 top quality juniors from all over Europe.

He got in an early seven man break that stayed clear throughout and in the process won eight premium lap sprints and took a tremendous fourth place overall.

The Wheelers’ time trial riders have also been hitting top form with Justin Dance taking second place in the Yeovil CC Tuesday evening five mile TT series.

He recorded 11m 42s – a 14 second improvement on his previous best.

At Yeovil’s ten mile TT on Saturday Dave Moffett recorded 22m 26s followed by Paul Barratt on 22m 49s and Buster Lawrence on 24m 41s. Nigel Ware stopped the clock at 25m 4s and Dean Ward 25m 11s.

Ben Moran timed 25m 15s in his first competitive TT, which is a highly commendable effort, and he beat his Dad, Dave, by 40 seconds.

Wiebke Rietz was second lady rider in 26m 5s and another great ride came from veteran John Trout who clocked 29m 40s despite being in his mid 70s.

Emily Attfield took a hard- fought fifth place in the Easter Classic at Castle Combe against a large field and Ryan White raced to a good top ten placing in a field of 66 riders despite being held up by a crash and having his back wheel clipped in the final sprint.

The Easter Sunday Brent Tor racing event in Devon is a two stage race with a hill climb stage and a road race.

Several Chard Wheelers made the journey to compete, with the top performances coming from George Fowler and Under-18 Jacob Board.

Board rode consistently well in both sections to claim fourth place overall and was the top Junior rider.

Fowler won the hill climb race and claimed a high enough position in the road race – despite being boxed in on the sprint – to claim second overall.

His top run of form and results is continuing even at the higher category 2 level of racing to which he was recently promoted.

Board also claimed a good number of BC ranking points and is quickly approaching his promotion to category 2.

For more details of the club’s activities contact Brandon Ellis on 01460-221479 or visit www.1stchardwheelers.org.uk