BEN INSTONE'S bid to bounce back to winning ways on his local course near Petersfield ended in his second defeat in six days, despite racing faster than ever before.

Competing in his own club's open ten-mile race on Saturday afternoon, the A3 CRG star clocked 20min 11sec after starting a minute behind Winchester road man Danny Axford (Oxford University CC) but that gap remained constant all the way round the course as the latter set a new university record of 20.9 to win by a slender two seconds.

That represented a 33 second improvement on his previous best time but Axford is confident he can race even faster.

"I aim to beat 20 minutes before the end of the season," he said.

Third placed Oliver Jones (Hampshire RC) also bettered his qualifying time to beat the potentially faster Mark Wareham (VC St Raphael Waite Contracts) by three seconds, but his hopes of repeating that when he returned to the same road for the Sussex CA 100-mile championship on the following morning foundered when he rode a few extra miles after taking a wrong turning in the first hour.

Competitors from the Southampton area took the major honours in this race with last year's winner, Malcolm Cox (VC St Raphael) of Hedge End improving by nearly three minutes to win the race for the third consecutive year with a personal best time of 3.48.56, while the Sotonia CC returned to the scene of their 50-mile success of the previous Sunday by winning the team prize again.

Stuart Hartingale, fourth fastest in 4.3.27, improved by a massive 39 minutes, Richard Burch clipped nearly six minutes off his previous best to finish eighth and Alan Sharpen completed the triumphant trio.

Although Rowan Horner finished outside the medals in the national 100-mile championship in Norfolk, Cox's other clubmates were runaway winners of both individual and team awards in Bournemouth Jubilee Wheelers 25 at Poole.

Runner-up Andrew Cooper (Primera Bournemouth) was the only one to separate race winner Steve Walkling from the club's other two team winners, Paul Haggerty and Mark Wareham, and Lesley-Anne Allen completed the rout by winning the women's category in an impressive 58-43.