Cycling: End of road for Venis

He then announced that, at the age of 73, it was maybe time to hang up his racing wheels.

Every veteran was paced round the 18-mile circuit by a younger rider.

Venis (21st Century Airports) gamely followed the back wheel of Chris Stockes to record 45min .27sec.

There were prizes for the fastest pairs but the main competition was for the handicap race which was based on the veterans' ages. Venis beat his target time by 14min. 54sec.

Harry Featherstone (Eastbourne Rovers), 69, was paced by Alan Rolfe to record a time of 45min.4sec, beating his target time by 13min.52sec.

Featherstone said: "I had to stop when Alan's chain came off."

Third place went to Don Lock (Worthing Excelsior), paced by Peter Thorpe-Hincks, who recorded 43min.52sec and a gain of 13min.14sec.

The fastest pair were Alan Curtis and Dave Pollard (In Gear) who clocked 40min. 22sec. Curtis is the Sussex 25-mile champion and Pollard a mere youngster in veteran terms at 44.

The East Grinstead CC cyclo-cross later in the day was halfway through before the forecast rain struck.

By then Surrey international Stuart Blunt (Corridori) was already 30 seconds ahead of Paul Byatt (Cyclone) and Brian Curtis (Corridori). Blunt doubled the time gap by the finish of the hour-long event.

Brighton's Jonathan Sharpe (Cycleweb-Saucony), struggling in the mud with just one gear working, finished sixth and, as the first local rider, took the lead in this opening Sussex League encounter.

The next Sussex riders were: ninth and 11th Steve Dennis and Andy Seltzer (East Grinstead); 15th Doug Fox (Crawley Wheelers); 16th and 20th Mark and Steve Burgess (Lewes Wanderers).

The Horsham Riders team of Mike Thyer, Stuart Aspinall, Paul Vinten and John Leyland won the veterans' team relay championship at the Cheddar Challenge mountain bike event in Somerset.

Richard Prebble (Team Clean) heads the field for the Bognor Regis CC 28-mile hilly time trial at Goodwood on Sunday (8am).