Cycling: Record-breaking weekend for veteran racer Conrad Moss

‘Ton-up’ Conrad Moss and teenager Callum Start made it a ‘double’ record-breaking weekend with standout cycling time trial performances in South Wales and Devon.

Paignton veteran Moss, who rides for Dorset’s Primera-TeamJobs squad, recorded his eighth victory of this season, and his 100th since coming out of his first retirement in 2013, when he won the Virtual RT’s 25-mile TT near Newport in 46mins 18secs.

The time is a new national age-related record, at an average speed of 32.48mph, as well as being only one second outside his personal-best.

Moss, 47, would have beaten his PB, and possibly gone under 46 minutes for the first time, if he hadn’t been briefly held up on an off-carriageway section of the course at Usk.

Mid-Devon CC prospect Start, 17, from Bovey Tracey set a new Junior course record in the Tavistock Wheelers’ 10-mile TT on the A30 near Okehampton.

Start went under 20mins for the first time, stopping the clocks at 19.52, 16 seconds faster than his previous best and good enough for second place overall, behind Blake Pond (NOPINZ Motip DT) in 19.25.

Meanwhile, Torquay’s young pro racer Harrison Wood is currently tackling one of the biggest weeks of his career.

A leading performer for the AVC Aix-en-Provence club but recently signed as a ‘stagiaire’ (trainee) by WorldTour team Cofidis, Wood has pulled on the red-and-white jersey of the leading French squad for the first time.

He is riding alongside many international stars in the four-day Tour du Limousin, which finishes tomorrow.

Wood, 22, has fought back to fitness following a crash in the under-23 Peace Race in the Czech Republic in June, when he sustained collarbone and cheekbone injuries and remained in hospital for five days under treatment for concussion.