A NEW race venue left several Bromsgrove Olympique Cycling Club riders wishing they had stayed in bed.

The course at Mancetter, near Atherstone, was based on a quarry and featured a steep hill and no technical sections to relieve the suffering.

The first event at the meeting on Sunday December 16 was the U-16s and started with a sprint up a one-in-three hill.

Alex Billington was the only competitor to ride up the slope and led the race for the first half lap until he was overtaken by the eventual winner, Ian Stannard, from Team Keyne.

Will Goulbourne slumped to an unusually low fifth place, being caught just before the finish by Matt Roach having gone clear of Matt Lee a lap earlier.

Peter Banham was in third early on but he eventually finished ninth. Ross Dingley was tenth and Bromsgrove riders Peter Yates, Ben Underhill and Chris MacDonald were 15th, 16th and 17th respectively.

The juniors', veterans' and ladies' event caught Francine Billington napping - she had worked until late Saturday night and was in the car asleep when her race started.

It left Kate Salmons as the only Olympique representative in the ladies' event and she rode well to finish third. Rob Twigg turned in another sterling performance. He tried desperately to stay with Bromsgrove resident John Scholes but narrowly failed.

The next vets to finish were Ian Billington (16th), Geoff Dingley (17th), Mike Cooper (18th), Gerry Blackmoor (22nd) and Richard Yates riding Rob Twigg's spare bike (23rd). Martin Barnett borrowed Rob's spare back wheel when he punctured on the third lap but he was forced to retire when the gears wouldn't work.

Gerry Blackmoor also had an eventful day. Having suffered a mechanical failure he looked for his spare bike to discover another rider had borrowed it.

In the U-12s, Craig Talbot's battle with Will Penn, from Lichfield, continued with the latter winning again despite Craig closing the gap to a few metres on several occasions. Craig finished third and holds second place in the league. Genny Billington rode a superb race to take seventh and first girl. Joe Underhill was eighth and Jason Dingley, 11th.

In the senior event, Steve Talbot recovered from a bad cold to finish an excellent 15th with Luke Twigg 19th. Bromsgrove Olymp-ique narrowly lead the team competition. The next league event is on January 6 near Daventry.