The hottest day of the year saw 13 riders lining up for a club event on the Stoke Hammond course in very hot and humid conditions. It was actually around 37oC for the race! I arrived quite early, as Tony was setting out some signage and I ended up hanging about, beating off the horse flies that plagued us. In fact, as I write this a few days after the event, I’m suffering several itchy bites!
Anyway, that didn’t really dent my performance. What dented that was the stiff old headwind out on the dual carriageway, and particularly on the rise up to the turn roundabout. By the time I reached the dual carriageway section, my mouth had dried up and got rather gummy. This made things a bit worse than I’d have liked! It was, of course a consequence of removing my bottle cage after the debacle on the Brogborough course the other week.
I finished with a slightly disappointing 23:41, a few seconds behind winner Geoff Perry - but good enough for second place.
Results at the NBRC website
Race data at Garmin Connect