Published: 16 May 2006
By John Dennis
By today?s parlance, AW Cycles Tim Bedingfield took two for the price of one in Monday?s pursuit Championship night at Reading?s Velodrome, when he won both the Regional and League 9 lap Individual pursuit titles and he did it with one final ride. The League Championship was open to Reading Velodrome Racing members only and the Regional event to members of clubs affiliated to the British cycling Region which stretches from Milton Keynes to Basingstoke, so Reading based Bedingfield was able to contest both.
Organised on International rules the fastest two contestants from the seven four up heats contested the final with the third fastest claiming the Bronze medal. Bedingfield was clearly best in the heats with a time of 5m 19.6s so he qualified for both Championships with Steve Legg, Twickenham next best at 5m 24.1s. In a punishing second pursuit within the hour they both slowed slightly in the final but Bedingfield?s 5m21.3s was easily good enough to win both titles leaving Martin McCrossan with 5m 25.3s runner up for the League title.
If there was a surprise from the wealth of pursuit racing it must have been Martin McCrossan, trackcycling.co.uk whose breakaway efforts of recent weeks came to fruition with a Championship medal for his efforts. But to put pursuit racing into perspective our riders must take note of the performance of Swedish guest rider, Freddie Johansson who did not qualify for either of the Championships but raced for a training exercise in the final heat to clock a devastating time of 5 mins 8.3 secs which was 11.3 secs better than the double Champion! Johansson returns to Sweden soon to contest his National road Championships of road racing and time trial and is now disappointed that there are no velodromes in his country. The 20 year old Swede had made his first mark of the evening when he beat two A.W.Cycles team mates Joe Bayfield and Tom Smith in the 10 lap scratch race. However the speed and guile of Bayfield now enjoying his return to racing this year after several years off the bike took his revenge in the AW Cycles Endurance final race of the night.
He had to work hard with Johansson and a few team mates to reel in what appeared to be a successful four man breakaway, and with only three laps left of the race. Then his renowned finishing sprint took him to victory, but only just, from Twickenham CC?s junior Ben Lowe and a notably fast improving Sam Sturgeon Trackcycling.co.uk