Drama at UK road bike time trial champs as protest launched against provisional winner

Riders from the weekend's CTT UK Road Bike Championship are still waiting for a result, as the governing body considers a complaint launched against the performance of provisional fastest men's rider, George Fox.

Cycling Weekly understands that a complaint under Section 29 of Cycling Time Trials's regulations – which governs road bike position and the machine itself – has been made.

Fox has apparently as yet not been told which part of Section 29 he is accused of falling foul of, and while the CTT is considering the complaint while it gathers evidence, it may yet be rejected.

The provisional results show that Fox (George Fox Cycling Solutions) rode the 22.4-mile course on the B1043 south of Peterborough in a blistering 46.28, beating second-placed Alex Dowsett (NoPinz) by a full 41 seconds. Alex Pickering (Elysium Kalas) is currently listed as third, a further 15 seconds back.

The women's and junior results are now confirmed as official, with women's winner Laura Davies (Jadan-Vive Le Velo) in 54.48, Benjamin Cousins (Verulam-Really Moving) heading up the junior men's result with 54.53, and Maia Howell (Matlock CC) the junior women, with 58.07.

Fox (pictured above in the event) was riding an Argon 18 frame – a newer, disc brake version of the time trial frame he broke the UK 10-mile road bike record on last year – with a pair of Elite bottles mounted behind the saddle.

With the matter currently in train, neither Fox nor the CTT wanted to speak on the issue. However, Dr Bryce Dyer, who drafted the original Section 29 regulations told Cycling Weekly: "[CTT] has to primarily decide whether there was actually a case to answer or not.

"It isn't clear at this point in time, what he's actually infringed within that he isn't referring to the whole thing, I'm assuming, but we don't know which bit. [Section] 29 is very broad, to say the least."

Dyer said that he drafted the regulations with the idea of encouraging as much participation as possible, especially by those who perhaps only owned one bike or had not time trialled before. The rules weren't necessarily designed to deal with riders pushing the envelope in National Championships.

"The concept I had was essentially 'do a crit on Friday, do a sportive on Saturday and do a TT on Sunday on the same bike'," Dyer said. "But I know full well that it does give a fair amount of room, unless you want to go down the UCI method of having everyone in jigs, which the CTT, as you'd understand, don't want to do that."