Another lovely sunny evening for a North Bucks Road Club evening time trial, and a return to the Stony Stratford course for another counting round in the club league. There was also a gentle breeze that promised to toughen the outward leg. Oh, and a profusion of greenfly in the air!
There was quite a bit of discussion as to whether we should use the replacement Nash-Whaddon circuit, as on our previous event at Stony Stratford when the course was affected by roadworks. In the end, we decided to go with the usual course, as riders who'd ridden the course earlier in the week said the road was clear enough (and so it proved). What was more worrying was the comments that travellers had caused problems near the turn on Monday, with kids playing 'chicken' with the riders as they passed.
After a slightly delayed start occasioned by a parade of sports cars and a group of horses, we were off. For my part, I found the outward leg really very tough. The first few miles are quite twisty, and the winter has most certainly not been kind to the road, with even more potholes added to the existing unrepaired road defects near Beachampton. Dodging the potholes, I reached Beachampton and began the climb up to Nash. I really suffered on the final stages to Nash (probably I need to lose a bit of weight to improve my power to weight ratio!). In Nash a motorist had kindly parked on the bend, leaving their car door wide open while they looked at the back end of their car. Avoiding this stellar parking act (and hoping that other riders, and indeed passing motorists would too), I pressed on up to the turn. A clear ride round the turn and off on the return leg, where I felt I wasn't reaching the usual speed on the first section back to Nash. Once through Nash the speed was up well over 40mph at times - though tempered with concern over bends in the road and assorted road defects to come.
I roared through Beachampton and on over the twists, turns and astonishing potholed surfaces, putting a big effort to cross the line in 27:19. This was better than I'd felt I was doing, but I really need to work on the climbing! On the other hand, it was faster than any ride I did on this course last year.
Results
| Pos. on | ||||||||
| Pos | No | Name | Club | Time | Cat | Vets Std | .+ / - | Vets Std |
| 1 | 10 | Tony Parks | NBRC | 26.23 | V45 | 30.29 | .+ 4.06 | 4 |
| 2 | 15 | David Glossy | Team Corley Cycles | 26.29 | S | |||
| 3 | 7 | Chris Dunwoodie | TeamMK | 27.00 | S | |||
| 4 | 13 | Robert Saunders | NBRC | 27.19 | V50 | 31.41 | .+ 4.22 | 3 |
| 5 | 14 | Glenn McMenamin | NBRC | 27.35 | S | |||
| 6 | 8 | Will Hilton | Virgin Active | 28.06 | S | |||
| 7 | 5 | Brian Primett | NBRC | 29.12 | V43 | 30.01 | .+ 0.49 | 6 |
| 8 | 11 | Aleck Hornshaw | TeamMK | 30.18 | V41 | 29.33 | .- 0.45 | 8 |
| 9 | 6 | Clive Faine | TeamMK | 30.22 | V63 | 35.05 | .+ 4.43 | 2 |
| 10 | 9 | John Buchanan | TeamMK | 30.27 | V40 | 29.20 | .- 1.07 | 9 |
| 11 | 3 | Gilbert Wheelwright | NBRC | 31.24 | V67 | 36.13 | .+ 4.49 | 1 |
| 12 | 4 | Christine White | NBRC | 33.01 | LV45 | 32.26 | .- 0.35 | 7 |
| 13 | 2 | Gordon Batcock | NBRC | 33.27 | V69 | 36.48 | .+ 3.21 | 5 |
| 14 | 1 | Alan Lawson | NBRC | 33.29 | V41 | 29.33 | .- 3.56 | 10 |
| Tandem | ||||||||
| 16 | Kevin Stokes | TeamMK | 25.08 | |||||
| Geoff Perry | TeamMK |
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