Today was a day with many climbs, starting from Lochinver, with the eventual destination being Durness. Unfortunately, it didn't work out according to plan.
We began in lightly drizzling spells, though with light winds. As the day went on, it got sunnier and sunnier. The cycling was quite tough, with climb after climb as we passed many of the frankly astounding Assynt mountains. We stopped for lunch in Scourie, after which we tackled a 12% gradient, which proved too much for the rear wheel, who's freehub began to give up. We returned, cautiously, to Scourie where we were lucky enough to be in time for the only bus of the day to Ullapool.
To cut a long story short, we returned in the car to Scourie where we found an excellent B&B. The current plan is to get to Thurso for repairs to be effected, and then to rescue what we can of our cycling holiday.
Just a brief note. We left Ullapool along the A835 - some definite climbs - before turning off on an unclassified road to Achiltibuie. Lovely road, stopped to brew up a cuppa on our trusty Trangia. Pressed on to Achilibuie, but couldn't find any B&B accommodation.
We backtracked to the Lochinver turnoff, then spent 12 miles of really beautiful but challenging cycling to reach Lochinver. We stopped to heat up some lunch, but got overrun by a shower, which curtailed this culinary extravaganza. We also had an impassive audience of nosey-parker sheep.
Found a B&B in Lochinver, then had beers and dinner (local scallops on black pudding mash)
43miles
Tonight's event was the North Bucks Road Club 10 mile championship, and was held on the Stoke Hammond bypass course. This made awkward factors such as cattle on the course rather less likely, but does bring higher traffic levels. I expected that starting the event at 7.15pm (rather than 7.00pm) would mean lower traffic levels, but in fact as I lined up at the start, I found there was quite a bit of traffic. One or two riders (including me) got slightly stalled at the first roundabout as a consequence but really, once started, I didn't feel there was a problem.
As has been the case with just about all the events I've ridden this year, we had windy conditions, making things tough most of the way round (with the exception of the return leg of the dual carriageway section - though actually that wasn't particularly brilliant). I had expected the wind direction to make it easier for the return from the dual carriageway section, but that wasn't to be the case as it turned out, and it was the usual grovel alonf rough road surfaces.
As I grovelled along the last half mile or so, I could see the timekeeper, but I started experiencing the strange time triallist's 'time collapse', where all of a sudden, the timer on the bike computer seemed to be running too fast! I was giving it everything to try and get under 23 minutes...
...and as it turned out, I managed 22:59. This was good enough for 2nd place equal. Not a bad evening, all in all, and perhaps an indicator of returning form (which I felt was masked by the interruption by cattle during last week's event).
My next event may be the Finsbury Park '50' on the F1/25 - I'm supposed to be off on a bike tour for a couple of weeks. I say 'supposed' because the weather forecast for our chosen destination seems particularly diabolical.
| Pos | Name | Club | Time | Age |
| 1 | TONY PARKS | NBRC | 22.38 | 40 |
| 2= | GEOFF PERRY | TEAM MK | 22.59 | 51 |
| 2= | ROB SAUNDERS | NBRC | 22.59 | 51 |
| 4 | DAVE GLOSSY | T. CORLEY | 23.03 | 38 |
| 5 | GEOFF BUNYAN | NBRC | 23.12 | 50 |
| 6 | LINDZ BARRAL | I TEAM CC | 23.25 | 34 |
| 7 | KEVIN STOKES | TEAM MK | 24.06 | 48 |
| 8 | JOHN BUCHANAN | TEAM MK | 24.21 | 41 |
| 9 | IAN STOKES | NBRC | 25.14 | 51 |
| 10 | BRIAN PRIMETT | TEAM MK | 25.18 | 44 |
| 11 | YVONNE GURNEY | BAINES/NBRC | 25.40 | 38 |
| 12 | ALAN LAWSON | NBRC | 27.30 | 42 |
| 13 | KATHERINE DILKS | TEAM MK | 27.58 | 41 |
| 14 | TONY BRUNTON | NBRC | 28.13 | 46 |
| 15 | SIMON KNATCHBULL | TEAM MK | 29.09 | 43 |
The latest cartoon from xkcd refers to my favourite episode of Star Trek: TNG. Actually, I suppose I generally found ST:TNG rather un-memorable, usually with facile plot resolutions. But this episode I thought was quite imaginative.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="414" caption="xkcd: Darmok and Jalad"]
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Dave Jones kindly sent over a photo of me he'd taken during last weekend's Norlond Combine '50' on the F1/50 course - at the risk of appearing excessively vain, I thought I'd post it here. I noticed him getting set up on the exit from the Sandy roundabout as I approached the turn, so I had time to compose myself so as not to look like I was on the point of throwing up (not, you understand, through effort - rather it was due to the weekend's over-indulgence, never a good training strategy). I think I managed the composure thing rather well.
[caption id="attachment_1497" align="alignleft" width="432" caption="Gritting my teeth at the Norlond '50', 15th May 2011"]
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