AFTER taking victory in the previous weekend's Dulwich Primavera road race, Winchester's Rob Hurd came up just short in the prestigious Jock Wadley road race on Sunday.

Hurd, who races for the Belgian Bio-Agrico squad, was once again the aggressor when he took off with four other riders after only 10km of the 140km race.

Hurd's major competition in the previous week's Dulwich race came in the form of Great Britain squad track rider Tony Gibb.

Pulling five riders up to the leading group, Gibb then decided to sit at the back and refuse to assist his breakaway companions. This tactic, known as 'sitting in', is not popular with other competitors but ultimately did Gibb no harm result-wise.

With Gibb sitting on the back, Hurd broke away on his own with 50km remaining, but with the lack of hills the Winchester rider was caught and forced to change his tactics and focus on the sprint to the line over the last kilometre.

In the race for the line, Commonwealth Games silver medallist Gibb clung on to a slender lead with Hurd throwing his bike across the line to take second.

Coming off a successful winter of cyclo cross racing, Portswood Cycles teenager Phillip Gough showed his sprinting prowess to take victory in Saturday's Spring Chicken road race in Buckinghamshire.

Winning a bunch sprint is all about timing your move to perfection, go too early and you give your rivals the advantage of being able to come off your wheel.

In true Tour de France fashion, Gough powered to the line ahead of Adam Norris of Crest CC.

Gough is a precocious talent and this year will surely show if this youngster has what it takes to go all the way in the sport.

Sitting in and coming through at the end seemed to be DFL rider Tony Gibb's preferred tactic as Danny Axford found out to his cost in the senior Spring Chicken race.

Axford, the Artic-Shorter team leader, has never been known as the fastest finisher and generally wins tough races on his own. However, from a ten-man leading group the Winchester rider still managed a creditable fourth in the sprint event won by Gibb.