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Ian Howell
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Biography
Cycling CV
DOB: ?
Category: V3
Main skill: Trailquest.
Career:
Started racing at age 45 in Trailquest and has rapidly become a leading contender in the Super - Veteran categories.
The rider says:
I first rode a bike at the age of 12, and rode "off road" before the rest of the world had realised that there is an alternative to tarmac. At 14 (going on 40) I joined the CTC and grew a beard, started eating lentils and became congenitally attached to an aran sweater. Coincidentally I also started riding regularly on a Sunday - my big aim was to complete 100 miles in 8 hours, which I did, albeit with my father's assistance, as driver of the sag waggon which conducted me over the last 20 miles. Oddly enough, this did not discourage me from cycling, but sex and drugs and rock and roll, and the fact that he moved to a town which had only just got gas light, never mind a tarmacced road to ride a bike on, finally put cycling on hold for the next few years - until 1996 in fact.
In time honoured tradition, I bought my wife a Mountain Bike as a Christmas present in 1995, and then proceeded to steal it. I rode my first Trailquest event in September 1996, the final race of that year's summer series. Since then, I have ridden six seasons of Trailquest, about 100 events, placing in general in the top three in age group. For the past two years I have finished runner-up in the Super-Vets category of the Trailbreak series, which covers the whole of Southern England.
I have now also started to ride road races, and was recently involved in the Team Event at the London Triathlon, taking care of the 40km time trial section for the eighth-placed team from the field of 160.
All of this just goes to show that it's never too late to start in cycling: There is always a discipline and a race series that riders with all the commitments that afflict us in older age can perform well in without having to live like the proverbial cycling monk.
News
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