GWR Team

GWR Team formed in January 2006. The team finished their first year as the top team in the South and ranked 9th nationally. GWR Team had another impressive year in 2007 finishing 12th nationally taking 26 victories. In 2008 the GWR Team finished 15th nationally after restructuring the team to focus on developing the next generation of riders. In the three year period the GWR Team has taken over 60 victories and achieved over 400 top five placing.

GWR Team's focus for 2009 is with the continued development of the U23 section of the team.

Llewellyn, rode the 2nd round of the Hog Hill summer series with temperatures in the mid 20 degrees the racing was run off at a fast pace. 27 riders lined up to contest the event and with in the first three laps the winning break of 8 riders escaped Kinch included. After 1hr of racing the 8 riders stayed clear to contest the sprint. Coming into the final hill Llewellyn found himself forced to take the long way round in the sprint which went to a photo finish. After a review by the Judge Llewellyn found he had just missed the win by a tyres width and had placed 2nd.

GWR team riders Nic Tilling, and Dan Smith, rode the 3rd round of the Castle Coombe summer serise. 100 riders lined up to contset the handi capped event. with three groups set off due to abilty Dan and Nic set off in the E1/2 group with a lap and a half to make up over the 16 lap race. The 4th cat group managed to sporadically keep the pace high enough to almost hold out only being caught until half way round the last lap. The E/1/2s having caught the 3rds allowed a quartet to get away, which included Nic, and as they took a breather when catching the 4th cats. This allowed the field to join up for what looked like another mass gallop. However, Jon Pain had escaped by a couple of hundred yards with Nic Tilling and the duo held off the bunch with Jon taking a deserved win and Nic 2nd. The pelaton came in over 10 seconds back.

The South Region Road Race Championships were held on the Mamesbury-Brinkworth-Charlton course in the rolling Wiltshire country just to the north of Chippenham. The senior Championship was held over four laps of a course totalling 80 miles. A very hot day saw temperatures reach 26_c, clear skies and bright overhead sunshine all around the course with little or no shade anywhere. With no climbs to speak of, the race had a nice rolling feel which kept the average speed up to around 27mph. With Dave Sinclair, Llewellyn Kinch, Nic tilling and Dan smith entered into the race the and Dave wearing Number 1 as defending Champion from last year the GWR team were up against 60 other riders. There were many attempted breaks coming from mainly Sport Beans, AW Cycles and VC Montpelier teams all of which were covered by one of the GWR team riders. As the pace of the race was high no one break could gain more than a 30 second advantage before it was sucked back by the charging peloton. By mid distance a group of eleven riders escaped with Tilling from the GWR team among them. This move looked to be decisive but was pulled back after 5 miles. Attack after attack continued to be pulled back, saw the race together before a
group on lap three did manage to gain 30 seconds, included in the break were riders from all the four major teams with Tilling and Kinch among them. The peloton sensed danger and was fragmenting under pressure to regain the leaders, saw Sinclair joining a chasing group. As the riders came in to the feed zone
at the end of the third lap Dan Smith was held up by a crash and could not rejoin the leading riders. Under the pressure from the chase behind and the lead riders not working well together, the three groups reformed with 5miles of racing left on the final lap. This group included Dave Sinclair, Nic Tilling and Llewellyn Kinch. A hesitation from the leading group of riders gave Martin Smith and Mark Perry the chance to jump away for the win. Martin took the win but following an appeal he was relegated to 2nd as Smith was adjudged to have
strayed of the line and was relegated. Llewellyn was the leading GWR rider coming in the 2nd group 5 seconds down for 7th place, Nic was also in this group claiming 11^th place and Dave won the sprint from the third group on the road 45 seconds back for 15th place. Of the 69 starters there were only 43 managed to finish what was a very tough race.

It was a hot but surprisingly windy evening for the first round of the summer race season held at the Upavon circuit, near Pewsey.The E/1/2 race got off to an electric start with a series of attacks that let the main break of 8 eight riders get away. After a frenetic first 20mins the race winning break formed including the GWR team rider Peter Kench, VCM Jon Pain, Sam Allen AW cycles and the Felt racing duo of Justin Hoy and Tim Elverson. The group quickly gained seconds over a splitting bunch- there were several concerned, grimacing faces in the bunch when they went straight into the red early on! The bunch managed to hold the break at 10 seconds for a lap and a half but the excellent teamwork of the break started to tell, when they had pulled out 25 seconds with the bunch never regaining the leaders. At half distance the break had a gap of 40 seconds although the effort was starting to tell, as many of the riders had competed the day before in the southern divisional championships. Going through the hour and with 5 laps to go the break started to attack each other to gain the first round win. Sam Allen rode strongly covering many moves, as each rider took their turn to attack. But in the end it was Elverson who put in a superb effort attacking alone with 1 lap to go, the remaining riders would not cooperate to chase him down,
which allowed Elverson to take a lone victory, coming into the sprint, Kench of the GWR team won the sprint to take 2nd place form Justin Hoy in third.