DAN Bigham was crowned national 10-mile champion once again after dominating proceedings in Berkshire on another good day for his Ribble Weldtite Pro Cycling team.

The 28-year-old from Stone, in Staffordshire also won the crown in 2017 and regained the title with a winning time of 18 minutes and 12 seconds.

Last season’s runner-up Christopher Fennell (The Independent Pedaler- Nopinz) had to settle for the same position once again in 18-34, while veteran Simon Wilson (Ribble Weldtite Pro Cycling) finished third a further two seconds behind.

In an agonisingly close under-23 competition Michael Gill (AeroLab Ward Wheelz) took the honours in 19-13, just a second ahead of team-mate Sebastien Garry while George Mills-Keeling (Ribble Weldtite Pro Cycling) finished third, just three seconds off the winner.

“From a performance perspective I’m really happy as everybody wants to win,” said Bigham.

“I wanted to put a marker down today which I did. The wind was different to what I expected, and it was oddly quite fast.

“I was pretty chuffed and it was a good team performance.”

Last season’s National 10 Mile Champion, Charlie Quarterman (Zappi Racing Team) was absent leaving Bigham as the last rider away from the start on the H10/3R course.

Riders started outside Hungerford and travelled east along the A4 towards Newbury before turning for home at the Bath Road Junction.

Bigham was clear senior victor and now has his eye on Fenell’s National 25 and Closed Circuit Championships crowns and hopes to make it a clean sweep with the National 50 also.

“It’s nice to be back and I’m keen to take the clean sweep of the 25, 50 and Circuit Championship titles,” added Bigham.

“I want to win everything I can this year and this is a good start towards that.

“We have John (Archibald) returning and a big squad coming into time trials so hopefully we can get some podiums.

“After lockdown we launched Project Speed to utilise all our sponsors and we’ve been testing our kit across the whole squad at outdoor velodromes.

“It made sense as time trialling is just another aspect of the sport and I prefer it to road racing, it’s a big thing for us.”

* All reports are copyright of Cycling Time Trials/Snowdon Sports. Not to be used without permission.

* A full gallery of images from this event by Kimroy Photography is available here