Astwood '10' 21/3/15

Preparing my bike the evening before the event was quite alarming. Several issues: a locked pedal that required considerable grease injection before it would turn; A rather iffy job of cabling the front mech (presumably dating from the pre-race tinkering before the Duo last year); and a severely rusted chain (presumably I didn’t lubricate it well enough after cleaning up the bike on January 1st). However, all quite easily remedied on a beautiful sunny and warm spring evening. Oh how things changed overnight. The day of our “Come and try it” 10 mile time trial on the Astwood circuit was cold and blighted by a strong northerly wind.  And I nearly didn't make it to the start owing to a black cat with suicidal tendencies that dived under my front wheel on the way up to the race! We'd decided to revise the Astwood course for this event: the revision meant the start was close to the BikeBus cafe - convenient for refuelling after the event, plus it offered some shelter from the elements. The downside was that the start point was fully exposed to the chilly north wind - I suspect I wasn't alone in shivering as I set off. This wasn't the first time I'd raced on the Astwood circuit with a start point that differs from that normally used by NBRC, as TeamMK have used a further variant. But our new variant has the climb to Astwood rather soon after the start. personally, I prefer to get that over and done with as soon as possible. Unfortunately it was made a little less pleasant by the cold head wind up the hill. I could see my minute man in the yellow and blue Equipe Velo strip - he didn't seem that far ahead! As I turned left into Astwood High Street, I was annoyed to see a car backing out into the road. I eased back slightly and followed it to the junction with the A422, where it stopped. And waited. And waited some more. I unclipped and put my foot on the tarmac. And still it waited. After what seemed an eternity, the driver finally drove out onto the A422, leaving me somewhat cross - not helped by my club mates Graham and Dave who informed me it had cost me at least 30secs (actually probably a fair bit less!)... Out on the main road I clipped back in and set off. The wind, though cold and slowing me down, wasn't so bad as to make steering difficult. It didn't seem to offer much assistance as I rode off to turn at Chicheley - once round onto the backroads to North Crawley, there were some really quite quick spells. I motored on back to the finish, which is now interestingly placed just after a small dip in the road. I finished in 3rd place and 1st on vets standard, with a long 24 (see results below). Later in the day, I recabled the front mech, so all is now fine with the P3.

Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	20	Richard Wood	Arbis/Colbert Cycles RT	24.10	S
2	11	Simon Moss	Equipe Velo	24.27	V41	26.04	.+ 1.37	2
3	12	Robert Saunders	NBRC	24.57	V55	27.09	.+ 2.12	1
4	15	Glenn Tearle	TeamMK	25.04	V49	26.41	.+ 1.37	2
5	13	Jason Lee	TeamMK	25.33	V46	26.27	.+ 0.54	4
6	10	John Buchanan	Team Corley Cycles	25.38	V45	26.23	.+ 0.45	5
7	1	Mick Atkinson	TeamMK	25.54	V41	26.04	.+ 0.10	8
8	9	Leigh Smith	Alpha Road Club	25.58	S
9	4	Andy Wickham	NBRC	26.03	V44	26.18	.+ 0.15	7
10	17	Geoff Hicks	Beds Roads CC	26.09	S
11	14	Andy Smith	TeamMK	26.50	V57	27.20	.+ 0.30	6
12	21	Dave Goodhew	NBRC	27.41	V41	26.04	.- 1.37	9
13	8	Phill Elvidge	TeamMK	28.24	V41	26.04	.- 2.20	12
14	2	Ian Stokes	45 Road Club	29.19	V55	27.09	.- 2.10	11
"	16	Andy Sharpe	Unattached	29.19	S
16	19	Adriana Borowska	NBRC	29.31	SL
17	5	Wayne Thomas	NBRC	29.37	V63	27.59	.- 1.38	10
18	18	Darren Carter-Maulden	Ampthill Velo	30.37	V42	26.09	.- 4.28	14
19	7	Luke Daniells	NBRC	30.38	V42	26.09	.- 4.29	15
20	6	Matt Holland	Team Corley Cycles	31.24	S
21	23	Alexandra Knowles	TeamMK	31.33	LV50	28.53	.- 2.40	13
22	3	Nicole Tur	Ampthill Velo	32.45	LV40	28.02	.- 4.43	16
DNF	22	Finn Hanson	TeamMK	44.44	V50	26.45
Time Keepers:- Stephanie Cousins & Tony Farmborough NBRC
Pusher Off & Course Marshal :- Bryan Scarborough NBRC