CYCLING: Another win for Dunchurch rider Hackley

Mike Twelves crossing the line for his first track win in 32 years

Mike Ives’ elite cycling team were in action across the UK again at the weekend.

Ex-professional and multi British Champion Mike Twelves from Hinckley was in brilliant form for Team Jewson-MI Racing-Polypipe. Twelves competed at the Reading Track meeting on Sunday, and after some excellent team work won the final event of the day, a 10 km Scratch race.

This was Twelves’ first victory on the track for 32 years, as he has concentrated on road racing both in this country and abroad, and only took up track racing in last six months because of the opening of the new Velodrome in Derby.

Twelves’ team mate Ian Cooper, a former Team Pursuit National Squad member, led Mike out for the last 3½ laps at a blistering pace, sacrificing his own chance of victory.

A few hours earlier Twelves had competed in the British Cycling National Veterans Road Championships in Buckinghamshire, where he finished just outside the medals with fourth place.

This coming Sunday he will lead a strong MI Racing team in the Percy Stallard event at Bearley, near Stratford on Avon, including Warwick’s John Stevenson, who will be racing for the first time since his terrible accident in February, when he suffered a fractured skull.

Team mate Martin Hackley from Dunchurch went one better in the 65+ National Championship, when he took the bronze medal. This was the third National Championship medal the team has won in the past eight days.

Earlier in the week Martin Hackley had been in action at the Milton Keynes Bowl, where he secured yet another victory - clearly the ‘King of the Bowl’.

Further afield Derrick Woodings kept the team’s colours to the fore by winning the Vic Sutton Memorial Road Race over 42 miles at Walkington, North Yorkshire, and team mate Mick Allan finished second in the over 65 years race at the same venue.