Looking out of my office window before riding up to Astwood for this evening's time trial, one might have been forgiven for thinking it was going to be a balmy warm late spring evening. Well, it was fairly balmy - there was only a light wind - but warm it most certainly wasn't. As we lined up at the start, the temperature was falling quite rapidly, and it was quite chilly.
We also didn't have a pusher-off, so watching riders start by failing to clip into their pedals was really quite amusing, Until it was my turn to start! Anyway, roaring off down the main road to Chicheley, I was quite pleased that my ride up from work had been brisk (rather later leaving than I'd intended): my heart rate was rapidly raised to a decent racing level. I roared down to Chicheley, I think in part because of a gentle tail wind. I stayed in the saddle and on the tribars all the wayto the Chicheley turn, then as usual took the bend quite cautiously as it's often rather gravelly. On up to North Crawley, and I was convinced I could see another rider ahead of me. But who? I couldn't figure it out, and for the rest of the race kept seeing the rider, then not, as the mystery rider moved round bends ahead of me. I tried hard to keep on the tribars round the bends after North Crawley, which I think helped to keep my speed up along those sections.
As I approached the final mile or so, I reckoned the mystery rider was #10 (and so it proved). I scorched down the final descent and nipped up the climb to the finish, again staying on the tribars, finishing with 23:49. As it turned out, this was only 5 seconds behind Tony P, and good enough for second place. Actually, my best time on this course is a mid-23, so this was really quite a good ride for me (and certainly my best this season).
Results (map of the course follows)
| Pos. on | ||||||||
| Pos | No | Name | Club | Time | Cat | Vets Std | .+ / - | Vets Std |
| 1 | 9 | Tony Parks | NBRC | 23.44 | V45 | 26.30 | .+2.46 | 4 |
| 2 | 11 | Rob Saunders | NBRC | 23.49 | V50 | 27.33 | .+3.44 | 1 |
| 3 | 8 | Lindz Barral | i-team CC | 24.07 | S | |||
| 4 | 10 | Chris Dunwoodie | TeamMK | 24.36 | S | |||
| 5 | 12 | Geoff Perry | TeamMK | 25.01 | V50 | 27.33 | .+2.32 | 6 |
| 6 | 7 | Kevin Stokes | TeamMK | 25.09 | V47 | 26.54 | .+1.45 | 7 |
| 7 | 5 | John Buchanan | TeamMK | 25.25 | V40 | 25.30 | .+0.05 | 10 |
| 8 | 14 | Graeme Freestone King | Team Synergie | 26.38 | V50 | 27.33 | .+0.55 | 8 |
| 9 | 4 | Clive Faine | TeamMK | 27.04 | V63 | 30.30 | .+3.26 | 2 |
| 10 | 13 | Ruth Freestone King | Team Synergie | 27.41 | LV46 | 28.25 | .+0.44 | 9 |
| 11 | 1 | Gilbert Wheelwright | NBRC | 28.20 | V67 | 31.30 | .+3.10 | 3 |
| 12 | 3 | Gordon Batcock | NBRC | 29.19 | V69 | 32.00 | .+2.41 | 5 |
| 13 | 2 | Tony Brunton | NBRC | 30.13 | V45 | 26.30 | .-3.43 | 11 |
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