Robert Hobbs Memorial 2 day

Stage 1 60 miles

After 60 fast and hard miles on the roads of Caermarthan, Welshman Julian Winn kept his Irish Milkrace winning form by beating Martin Ford and Mark Lovatt and in an uphill sprint finish to take the Leaders jersey. Pre race favourite Wayne Randle suffered an ill timed puncture in the first few miles as the hammer went down with a first hour average of 29mph. Randle came in 12 minutes down.

Stage 2 30 miles

In torrential rain, Julian Winn seemed invincible as he rode the bunch off his wheel, to gain more time in the overall lead. Pro-Visions Wayne Randle kept to the team motto of (“every man for himself, kid”) and clawed his way across to Winn on his own. Randle then had an armchair ride to the finish being unable to work, because of team mate Mark Lovatt holding 3rd place and chasing furiously behind. Come the sprint finish Winn tried to come round Randle on the inside line, but the door was well and truly closed on him by a victorious Randle.

Lovatt meanwhile had moved up the G.C to 2nd overall, now placed 58 seconds behind Winn with 1 stage remaining.

Stage 3 90 miles

With 90 hilly miles to go on the penultimate stage, it seemed no-one had the legs to overtake the strong and confident Winn. Winn was riding like a one man peleton chasing everything that moved . Cooly lurking in the background was Lovatt, sat in watching Winn dominate the head of the race. Lovatt said casually to Randle, “there’s only one man who’s going to win this race” then slipped off into a break with the race leader and teamate Randle in tow. With 10 miles to go Winn blew up spectacularly, the combination of trying to stamp his authority on the race and being worked over by Lovat and Randle was too much to handle. The Pro-Vision duo rode away with Randle taking another stage and Lovatt sealing the overall win.