WHEN it comes to hill climbing on a bicycle, Okehamp-ton’s Josh Coyne is riding high as one of the best in the country.

Josh, who is a member of Okehampton Cycle Club, has been hill climb racing all over the South West and collecting good results and a few podiums.

At the National Championships held in Northumberland recently, he raced at a small village called Hedley on the Hill. Out of the 240 riders who qualified — many more missed out — he came in at an excellent 30th place in a time of 4 minutes 30 seconds — a huge improvement on his standing last year.

Josh is the training partner of fellow OCC rider Andrew White, who recently won a cycling gold medal at the Invicta Games in Canada.

He also finished in fourth place last month in the Western Time Trials Association Hill Climb Championship, which is highly regarded in the region.

Josh told Times Sport: ‘My goal was always to improve on last years position of 93rd in the Nationals but I didn’t expect to improve that much.

‘I was over the moon with the result, and huge thanks must go to Nigel @ BPM Coaching for his help over the last few seasons as well as helping with the logistics of being able to attend the Nationals.

‘It’s rounded off a great season of hill climbs for me where I have improved my position and time on every event I raced compared to last year, some by more than two minutes.  My season is over now so will take a few weeks to chill then get back into training for next year to hopefully try and crack the top 15’