Stoke Hammond '10' 11th April 2012

Typically for an early season evening event, this was a a rather cool evening, with showers cruising past, though fortunately, riders didn't experience too much rain while riding.  I approached this event in some trepidation after my disastrous outing at the Team Salesengine '10' the previous Saturday. I was quite late arriving, and ended up as last rider to start, at #11. Setting off, it was immediately clear that I was nowhere as weak as last Saturday.  The race itself was quite uneventful, despite higher traffic levels than I'm used to on that course. In fact a red lorry that was making me nervous on the approach to one of the roundabouts turned out to have a very considerate driver and gave me plenty of room.  The only irritant on the traffic front was the final two roundabout, where I had to stop due to traffic entering from the right. I finished with 23:43, having experienced the apparent speeding up of time during the closing stages of the race - I'd hoped to do a mid 23.  But still, it was progress from my last open '10'! Results (at the NBRC website)