Gold and silver for McLean and Riise

It was a double medal success for two Shetland Wheelers cyclists competing in the Scottish National 100 mile time trial championship last weekend. Christine McLean retained the gold medal in the women’s title while Carlos Riise won the silver medal in the men’s event.

The competition was held on open road course around the B817 Invergordon coast road and the busy A9 between the Nigg and Ardullie roundabouts. It involved covering a 50 mile circuit twice.

Unfortunately for the riders there was a strong westerly, strength zapping wind to contend with and although this helped on the return it never gave back what it took away in terms of speed and energy, although Carlos’s dinner plate-sized, 60-tooth chain ring was certainly beneficial for getting the maximum power out.

On the positive side it was relatively warm and the wind did die back slightly with the one or two cooling showers that passed through. The tough conditions did prove too much for some though as out of almost 50 riders at least 10 pulled out and did not finish.

Christine was happy with her performance having completed the distance in 4:28:23, more than seven minutes faster than silver medallist Sarah Gleave (Glasgow Nightingales) and almost 1hr 3mins up on the standard time for her age catagory.

Carlos was one of only two riders who succeeded in completing the 100 miles in below four hours.

He put in a superb ride with a time of 3:56:10 and so it was a cruel blow that such an excellent performance should be beaten to gold by a mere four seconds with Ian Black (Sandy Wallace Cycles) finishing in 3:56:06.