Astwood '10' 23/6/10 - summer's here!

Well, a bit of a change from the weekend's racing - a lovely sunny and warm evening greeted us as we gathered for the NBRC's club event on the Astwood circuit.  In actual fact it was the sort of evening that would have been rather pleasant to spend sitting in a pub garden sipping beer...but that was not to be as I lined up, yawning, to ride as #13 in this evening's event.We had a good turnout of 18 riders plus a tandem pair - we even had a visiting rider, Emma from Gillingham & District Wheelers, who'd enquired about the event via the NBRC website.  Emma turned out on her mountain bike.  Other notable riders included the "legendary" Karlo Porter.  I say legendary because people where he and I work keep saying "You must know Karlo", and because his club hill climb record for the Bow Brickhill course will be 20 years old next year. The light wind was enough to take the edge of my speed as I headed off towards Chicheley, but once round the corner the speed picked up substantially and before I knew it I was approaching North Crawley. I was riding without speed most of the time as the GPS kept dropping connection. By this time I was feeling a little "dry", but decided to hold off on drinking until the finish. Once through Crawley, it was the usual scramble to get back up to speed, but I felt pretty much OK other than being a bit thirsty!  The final push up the climb to the finish was really tough as I was determined to catch #12 (Darren) - unfortunately I failed! Tony took the honours, despite suffering a broken spoke on his from Zipp.  I was pretty pleased - according to Tony F.'s records, this is my fastest ride at Astwood since May 2006.