On the face ofit, a lovely evening for a time trial. In fact, as I rode up to Astwood from work, the temperature had begun dropping significantly. Also, my bike computer was behaving rather aberrantly, and wasn't receiving much in the way of speed/distance, and to add insult to injury, its heart rate display was really very wobbly. Maybe there's a battery issue.
These issues notwithstanding, I arrived in good time for the event, signed on, and awaited the start. My hope was to continue my recent run of good form and ideally finish in less than 24 minutes - an achievable gold. I started feeling pretty damned cold, and indeed decided to ride with my long sleeved cycling jersey over my skinsuit. I lined up as number 6, and at the allotted time, off I went.At first, all seemed well, though due to the computer problems, I had no way of know how well I was going. I got through Chicheley still feeling OK. A brief flurry of enthusiasm from the bike computer indicated my pace was pretty good after the turn. Around the time I reached North Crawley, I discovered my left tri-bar extension had worked loose (this has happened repeatedly of late, and doesn't seem to respond to bolt-tightening, even with loctite). From here on, it was a bit of a struggle, as my forearm was now resting directly on the base bar - not very comfortable!
As I passed the right turn to Cranfield University, some blasted 4x4 pickup driver looked directly at me, and pulled out right in front of me, causing me to slow down nearly to a stop. When I shouted "Oh, come on!", he stopped dead. I thought about this for a moment, and pulled round him. For the next few miles, the driver followed me close behind my front wheel. I found this really quite worrying, as I was suspecting the driver might be about to do something dangerous. In fact, he stayed there until the Bourne End turn off, when he eventually passed me. Perhaps I'd just surprised him a bit - he certainly didn't seem aggressive.
By the time I reached the descent before the finishing climb, my left forearm was a bit uncomfortable fro the base bar. I wa still hopeful of a sub-24, in that delusional way that time triallists sometimes have. Unfortunately, the "Grumpy Bob time compression effect" seemed to take hold - time which seemed to be passing pretty slowly through most of the ride appeared to speed up in the last few hundred yards, and ticked well past 24 minutes. I estimated my finish time as around 24:33. The offcial result is somewhat worse, at 24:36.
To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed, and don't know if this reflects the circumstances of the ride, or just a temporary dip in form. Hopefully the latter. I've an open '10' on Sunday, and the next club event (Stony Stratford '11.4') on Wednesday, which should offer another opportunity to gauge my form. In the meantime, it's getting quite urgent that I address this tri-bar problem.
Results are tabulated below.
Pos. on
Pos
No
Name
Club
Time
Cat
Vets Std
.+ / -
Vets Std
1
9
Tim Carter
Virgin Active
22.29
V44
26.18
.+ 3.49
2
2
16
Simon Canning
TeamMK
23.01
V40
25.30
.+ 2.29
8
3
17
Aaron McCaffray
AWCycles
23.04
S
4
12
Tony Parks
NBRC
23.17
V45
26.30
.+ 3.13
5
5
18
Dave Glossy
Team Corley Cycles
23.43
S
6
14
Lindz Barral
i-team CC
23.53
S
7
6
Rob Saunders
NBRC
24.36
V50
27.33
.+ 2.57
6
8
13
Geoff Perry
TeamMK
24.43
V50
27.33
.+ 2.50
7
9
8
Glenn McMenamin
NBRC
25.02
S
10
19
Phil Jenkins
TeamMK
25.03
V41
25.42
.+ 0.39
.= 10
11
2
Julian Lane
Unattached
25.27
V43
26.06
.+ 0.39
.= 10
12
15
Robert Chaundy
TeamMK
25.45
V58
29.20
.+ 3.35
4
13
7
David Carrington
TeamMK
25.50
V44
26.18
.+ 0.28
12
14
10
Ian Stokes
NBRC
26.30
V50
27.33
.+ 1.03
9
15
3
Clive Faine
TeamMK
26.55
V64
30.45
.+ 3.50
1
16
11
Gilbert Wheelwright
NBRC
27.49
V67
31.30
.+ 3.41
3
17
4
Marcus Buksh
Kettering CC
28.47
V46
26.42
.- 2.05
14
18
5
Nick Crook
NBRC
29.33
V59
29.34
.+ 0.01
13
19
1
Tony Brunton
NBRC
30.42
V45
26.30
.- 4.12
15
Time keepers :- Steph Cousins & Tony Farmborough NBRC
On the face ofit, a lovely evening for a time trial. In fact, as I rode up to Astwood from work, the temperature had begun dropping significantly. Also, my bike computer was behaving rather aberrantly, and wasn't receiving much in the way of speed/distance, and to add insult to injury, its heart rate display was really very wobbly. Maybe there's a battery issue.
These issues notwithstanding, I arrived in good time for the event, signed on, and awaited the start. My hope was to continue my recent run of good form and ideally finish in less than 24 minutes - an achievable gold. I started feeling pretty damned cold, and indeed decided to ride with my long sleeved cycling jersey over my skinsuit. I lined up as number 6, and at the allotted time, off I went.At first, all seemed well, though due to the computer problems, I had no way of know how well I was going. I got through Chicheley still feeling OK. A brief flurry of enthusiasm from the bike computer indicated my pace was pretty good after the turn. Around the time I reached North Crawley, I discovered my left tri-bar extension had worked loose (this has happened repeatedly of late, and doesn't seem to respond to bolt-tightening, even with loctite). From here on, it was a bit of a struggle, as my forearm was now resting directly on the base bar - not very comfortable!
As I passed the right turn to Cranfield University, some blasted 4x4 pickup driver looked directly at me, and pulled out right in front of me, causing me to slow down nearly to a stop. When I shouted "Oh, come on!", he stopped dead. I thought about this for a moment, and pulled round him. For the next few miles, the driver followed me close behind my front wheel. I found this really quite worrying, as I was suspecting the driver might be about to do something dangerous. In fact, he stayed there until the Bourne End turn off, when he eventually passed me. Perhaps I'd just surprised him a bit - he certainly didn't seem aggressive.
By the time I reached the descent before the finishing climb, my left forearm was a bit uncomfortable fro the base bar. I wa still hopeful of a sub-24, in that delusional way that time triallists sometimes have. Unfortunately, the "Grumpy Bob time compression effect" seemed to take hold - time which seemed to be passing pretty slowly through most of the ride appeared to speed up in the last few hundred yards, and ticked well past 24 minutes. I estimated my finish time as around 24:33. The offcial result is somewhat worse, at 24:36.
To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed, and don't know if this reflects the circumstances of the ride, or just a temporary dip in form. Hopefully the latter. I've an open '10' on Sunday, and the next club event (Stony Stratford '11.4') on Wednesday, which should offer another opportunity to gauge my form. In the meantime, it's getting quite urgent that I address this tri-bar problem.
Results are tabulated below.