I maintain several other related websites:Wonderful Life is a blog covering my interests in atheism, particularly as they relate to biology and creationism.North Bucks Road Club is the website of my cycling club.Northwood Wheelers is a website dedicated to the eponymous (but now defunct) cycling club, of which my father was a member.Team Grumpy features stories concerning cycle timetrialling, particularly as they relate to 2-up team time trials.The Team Grumpy blog is Team Grumpy’s blog, and most definitely tongue in cheek.

The rather sunny conditions belied the actual temperature as Tony and I got our bikes ready to ride in this event. It was actually pretty nippy in the car park, but once we got racing, I found it quite comfortable. For this event, I'd got out my trusty old Corima disc wheel and paired it with a newly refurbished Hed Stinger 90 (I removed the yellow tub and the yellow and red stickers). I was rather pleased that the chain wasn't jumping on the new cassette I'd fitted to the Corima. I was rather less pleased with the astonishingly loud howl that emanated from my bike every time I applied the rear brakes! That will need a bit of attention, I think.The F2D/10 uses the A428 dual carriageway, starting on the old road and joining the DC at the Cambourne interchange. It turns at the Madingley road junction. Conditions were pretty good, and I found the outward leg pretty quick. I like the turn as it feels a fair bit safer than Caxton Gibbett. The return was a bit tougher, particularly at the interchange that we ride past - there seems to be a striking descent at that point!Annoyingly, the finish of this course is just off the dual carriageway: you exit up the slip road at the Cambourne interchange, and take the first left to the finish. I was just about to catch my minute man when a small car entered the roundabout and displayed all the driving courage of a minnow. This held me up a very little but enough to annoy!I finished with 22:14 (my best '10' time since the 2010 season). Tony finished with 21:41 - so I'm gaining on him! All in all, quite a satisfying ride.Davey Jones was out on the course photographing - here's a picture of me near the turn (with my skinsuit leg riding up!)

I regularly compete in the Duo Normand 2-up time trial, held in Normandy in the autumn. Associated with trips to race, we frequently take the tandem for a spot of cycling about the Normandy countryside.

I had high hopes for this evening's event - recent performances had suggested that my form was picking up under the onslaught of increased training load. Plus the evening's conditions seemed rather promising. However, there seemed to be  quite a bit of traffic, which was making many of us at the start quite nervous.Indeed, I did get slightly held up at the first roundabout, as a chunk of traffic got in the way. From there, things got a bit easier - I tried using somewhat lower gears than usual on the climb up to the dual carriageway section, but found this just slowed me down. Once on the dual carriageway, it seemed rather heavy going (aggravated by a bus passing me rather too close for comfort), but once round the turn, I seemed to be absolutely flying.I dared hope for a sub-23 minute ride, but was sadly thwarted, finishing in a not so great 23:20.Results at the NBRC website. Here's the trace:

Annual cycle tours by tandem