Club '10' 29/8/09 - Stoke Hammond Bypass (F5d/10)

A glorious sunny morning greeted me, though it belied the chill in the air as we gathered first at the clubroom and then down at the start of this club event.  Clearly, autumn had arrived!

The other factor to be taken into account was the headwind up to the turn onto the new dual carriageway - this was sufficient to knock me back to well below 20mph, before picking up speed on the undulating DC section. While the wind wasn't enough to cause problems, I could feel it tugging at the front wheel, particularly when passing lorries shielded me from it.

Only five or six of us had signed on at the clubroom  - about the same number again signed on down at the start near the Kelley's Kitchen roundabout.  I found the event generally quite a bit harder than expected - I was pretty tired and had galloping hypochondria (or perhaps I did have an incipient cold - watch this space...). Nevertheless, I did hold the gap between Lindz Barrall to reasonable proportions.  Geoff Perry did a tidy performance to take the overall honours.

A smaller than usual turnout probably reflected the early morning start, and the fact that it was a Saturday!  Also, there's the Aylesbury time trial held later in the day, for many a practice for the British Time Trialling Championship next week, both events being held on the Claydons circuit.

This is probably my last event before the Duo - next week there's no club event due to preparations for the BTTC event, and the week after that is the day we travel to France for the Duo.