In the days leading up to this opening event in the North Bucks Road Club's evening TT series, the weather forecast was looking pretty grim with cold and wet conditions predicted. On the day however, this all turned round and we had dry and sunny conditions, but with a pretty strong and blustery wind that promised a hard ride back from the turn. I chose to ride my P5 TT bike, but I swapped out its 90mm deep rim front wheel for an H3 trispoke as I thought that might be a bit better in the blustery conditions.

I rode out to the meeting point quite early so that I'd have time to check things out on the course. I rode down to the first roundabout and back, which was enough to confirm that it would be quick to the turn and a tough ride back - indeed I found it difficult to use the aero extensions due to the head wind. Still, the strength of the wind had been falling through the afternoon, so maybe things would be a bit easier than I expected.

I'd entered the N&DCA '10' on the F15/10 Brogborough course quite early, and as the date of the event drew close, the weather forecast was pretty dismal, with persistent rain forecast for the whole afternoon. Consequently I felt a bit apprehensive. However, on the day the conditions turned out to be near ideal with warm sunshine and a gentle sidewind throughout.

I never really know how my first time trial in a while is likely to go, and to be frank I'd have been happy with a sub-24 minute ride. I'd done a few Zwift time trials, but I find them rather tedious and surprisingly hard compared to a real life time trial. Anyway, the HQ for this course is only about 4 minutes bike ride for me, and as per usual I went down to the HQ, signed on, chatted with a few people and ridden up to near the start far too early. I rode a few loops round Brogborough then went to hang around at the start for a bit.

In which I end up riding a solo 2-up

The Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up 25 mile time trial is often my season opening event. It involves a trip over to South Wales to visit a former club mate and regular Team Grumpy 2-up time trial partner. The usual pattern is to drive over on Friday, eat a massive Indian takeaway; test ride the bikes and have a moderate walk on Saturday; the event itself on Sunday; drive home on Monday.

After I decided to return to the TrainerRoad fold, I was looking forward to another stab at a VTTA Zwift '10'. Unfortunately, I had to pack this as I was a bit unwell, with a mild cold affecting my breathing. This only became evident after my warmup and about halfway through the TT. I thought it prudent to stop. The next day, I felt quite woozy so I also took tthat as a rest day. Of course, this was a peculiar, if mild, cold that came and went. Fortunately it didn't materially affect my preparation fof my first open event of 2025, the Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up '25'.

This event is the usual starter for the season, and historically I've ridden with my regular 2-up partner - and 2025 is no exception. This year has the added motivation of the first edition of the Duo Normand since it was blown off the calendar by Covid-19. The event itself has been reduced from 25 miles to 15 miles owing to roadworks on the opening stretch of dual carriageway. That's not too bad, really, as the remaining section is on a more 'sporting' road. Here's Team Grumpy looking good in the 2024 edition of the Port Talbot Wheelers event, in which we (well actually, I) punctured just a few minutes after starting.

The star album from this selection has to be The Fall's Live At The Witch Trials. This is one of the formative post-punk albums that set the direction of my musical taste.

I've gone on to amass a ridiculous number of The Fall albums over the years and they are (possibly as a consequence) my most-played band on last.fm with over 63,000 scrobbles since 2012. The Fall's debut, it kicked of a splendid series of albums, probably peaking with Grotesque and Hex Enduction Hour. But as John Peel (I think) said - always the same but always different. The Fall may have made some albums that weren't so good as others in their discography but I don't think they made any truly awful ones.

I'm running behind on this - I've listened to 412 albums of this list.

In this set of 20 albums, there are four albums I rated 5, by Pavement, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie and The Rolling Stones. Three of these were already in my collection, and I added the other.

Another Tuesday, another Zwift 10 mile time trial organised by the VTTA.

After the debacle on 4th February, and the return to form on the 11th February, I had hopes of a (probably minor) incremental improvement. That didn't happen, and instead the result pointed to continued difficulties in pacing on a flat virtual time trial course.

My initial 6 month subscription to Athletica.ai was nearing the end, and I was keen to rationalise my various virtual cycling/coaching subscriptions. At the time, I had active subscriptions to Zwift, Rouvy and to TrainerRoad. I’ve been using TrainerRoad for the longest period, and only started with Zwift in 2020 while in Covid lockdown.  I also subscribe quarterly to intervals.icu for its superior data analysis capabilities. In the past I tried FulGaz (which was bought by Ironman, and now by Rouvy) for a year or so.

You can probably tell that I enjoy trying out new virtual cycling and training apps, but these aren’t particularly cheap if you have several of them, so I periodically prune some of these back.

After last week's debacle where my bike collapsed under me into a salty mixture of iron oxide and sweat, bringing my time trial to an abrupt end after 10km, I was uncertain how today's event would go. Because I'd been generously gifted an old road bike by a club mate - actually I already had this, but I was awaiting some 11-speed shifters from Ali-Express before mounting the bike on the trainer - I was able to get up and running again the following day, albeit on the 8-speed gearing the bike came with.

On the back of nearly a week of using this bike, I was aware of a slight gearing issue, where some gears occasionally jump slightly. I hoped this wouldn't be an issue. This week I took things pretty easy in the 48h ahead of the time trial. On Monday I just did an Athletica recovery session, and I didn't ride in the morning of the time trial. I planned out a 40 minute warmup routine, which consisted of the 20m ramp up, then a couple of higher power sets of 30s at 113% FTP followed by 2m30s at 95% FTP, separated by 4m at 69% FTP. Then a easy spin before my start time. 

I'd been somewhat concerned for some time about the state of the bike frame mounted on my Tacx Neo trainer - many years of heavy sweating had corroded it really badly. I had joked recently about it collapsing, and had obtained a replacement. But of course as I awaited parts to arrive, I hadn't set it up.

I completed a decent 40 minute warmup pretty well, though I'd noticed that the gears were sounding a bit rough, and occasionally the rear mech seemed to want to change on its own accord. Oh well, I thought, I have a look tomorrow. A few minutes before my scheduled start ay 19:04, I moved to the start pen and waited a few minutes to start.