Flies and Bikes Blog

Usually, I ride this hilly time trial - it's a good early season event to get the cobwebs out. This was my second open event of 2008. By Saturday evening, I'd been getting more apprehensive, as the nasty weather of Saturday afternoon (when I had been marshalling the Northampton and District Cycing Association '10') worsened to gales overnight. By Sunday morning the wind had eased considerably.

The event HQ is in Cheddington village hall - I rode out on the time trial bike via the new Stoke Hammond bypass, a nice smooth road, that we used for the NBRC New Year club '10'. This was pretty uneventful, except I punctured near Mentmore. This was a front wheel puncture. As I have acquired a reputation as a frequent puncture victim over the last couple of seasons, so much so that I have reverted to clinchers, I will keep a log of these punctures separately. Anyway, I slung a new tube in and got the tyre up to a ridable pressure using my tiny micro-pump. Once at Cheddington, I borrowed a track pump (I think from the eventual winner), and got the front tyre up to a more reasonable pressure for racing.

The course, F12/30K, is a circuit that takes in several short but severe climbs. The start is just outside Ivinghoe, and as usual I found I lost a lot of the speed I rapidly acquired while getting through Ivinghoe, where there are numerous speed bumps. The first real climb takes you up the shoulder of Ivinghoe Beacon, but on this day, the wind gave a helpful push up. Down the other side, and along a nice fast undulating road to the severe climb at Billington. This is a steep one, with a final kick upwards which can catch the unwary out. As usual I muscled far too big a gear over the hill - this is something I have to cure myself of. The stiff breeze made the leg along the Leighton Buzzard bypass quite tough, especially the climb to Wing. I was slowed briefly by traffic in Wing itself, and was rather alarming overtaken by a ludicrously long and pink stretch limo! The final climb is at Mentmore (near the scene of my unfortunate puncture earlier), then a rapid scroch down to the finish.

I didn't note the results (too busy blethering) so I'll need to add them later, but I did a 49:11, which I was reasonably happy with. Overall, an OK performance, but I seemed to have difficulty getting the HR up.