Stony '11.4' 1st July 2009 - Hot, hot, hot

This was the hottest evening event so far - it was humid and temperatures reaching towards 30 centigrade made it tough for me (though, it has to be said, not for some other riders).  My roar up V10 to reach Stony was a good warmup, and after noticing several new riders (this was a "Come and Try it" event) and explaining how time trialling works, I started in the #17 spot.

Actually, to start with, I was feeling pretty good, but pretty rapidly I found my pulse rate soaring, furst up into level 2 (so far, so good), but then onwards into level 4.  The opening mile or so seemd good, and I felt quicj, but I just lost it climbing towards Nash - I tried to keep the gearing down, but this just led to slower speeds!  After turning, the bigh descent from Nash to Beachampton was harder than usual, as I failed to get the speed up (and was seeing very high pulse rates - on a descent!).

The final insult was to get stopped dead by a white van right at the last turn before the finishing straight.  I finished with a disappointing 27:49.  Other news - Gilbert came a cropper somewhere out on the course but remounted and finished (thereby assuring his nickname of "Hard Man of the North") - but looked a bit groggy at the finish.

Full results to follow.