Tonight's event was the North Bucks Road Club 10 mile championship, and was held on the Stoke Hammond bypass course. This made awkward factors such as cattle on the course rather less likely, but does bring higher traffic levels. I expected that starting the event at 7.15pm (rather than 7.00pm) would mean lower traffic levels, but in fact as I lined up at the start, I found there was quite a bit of traffic. One or two riders (including me) got slightly stalled at the first roundabout as a consequence but really, once started, I didn't feel there was a problem.
As has been the case with just about all the events I've ridden this year, we had windy conditions, making things tough most of the way round (with the exception of the return leg of the dual carriageway section - though actually that wasn't particularly brilliant). I had expected the wind direction to make it easier for the return from the dual carriageway section, but that wasn't to be the case as it turned out, and it was the usual grovel alonf rough road surfaces.
As I grovelled along the last half mile or so, I could see the timekeeper, but I started experiencing the strange time triallist's 'time collapse', where all of a sudden, the timer on the bike computer seemed to be running too fast! I was giving it everything to try and get under 23 minutes...
...and as it turned out, I managed 22:59. This was good enough for 2nd place equal. Not a bad evening, all in all, and perhaps an indicator of returning form (which I felt was masked by the interruption by cattle during last week's event).
My next event may be the Finsbury Park '50' on the F1/25 - I'm supposed to be off on a bike tour for a couple of weeks. I say 'supposed' because the weather forecast for our chosen destination seems particularly diabolical.
Pos
Name
Club
Time
Age
1
TONY PARKS
NBRC
22.38
40
2=
GEOFF PERRY
TEAM MK
22.59
51
2=
ROB SAUNDERS
NBRC
22.59
51
4
DAVE GLOSSY
T. CORLEY
23.03
38
5
GEOFF BUNYAN
NBRC
23.12
50
6
LINDZ BARRAL
I TEAM CC
23.25
34
7
KEVIN STOKES
TEAM MK
24.06
48
8
JOHN BUCHANAN
TEAM MK
24.21
41
9
IAN STOKES
NBRC
25.14
51
10
BRIAN PRIMETT
TEAM MK
25.18
44
11
YVONNE GURNEY
BAINES/NBRC
25.40
38
12
ALAN LAWSON
NBRC
27.30
42
13
KATHERINE DILKS
TEAM MK
27.58
41
14
TONY BRUNTON
NBRC
28.13
46
15
SIMON KNATCHBULL
TEAM MK
29.09
43
And, as usual, here's the event telemetry! Click on 'More Details' for speed, elevation, heart rate etc.
Tonight's event was the North Bucks Road Club 10 mile championship, and was held on the Stoke Hammond bypass course. This made awkward factors such as cattle on the course rather less likely, but does bring higher traffic levels. I expected that starting the event at 7.15pm (rather than 7.00pm) would mean lower traffic levels, but in fact as I lined up at the start, I found there was quite a bit of traffic. One or two riders (including me) got slightly stalled at the first roundabout as a consequence but really, once started, I didn't feel there was a problem.
As has been the case with just about all the events I've ridden this year, we had windy conditions, making things tough most of the way round (with the exception of the return leg of the dual carriageway section - though actually that wasn't particularly brilliant). I had expected the wind direction to make it easier for the return from the dual carriageway section, but that wasn't to be the case as it turned out, and it was the usual grovel alonf rough road surfaces.
As I grovelled along the last half mile or so, I could see the timekeeper, but I started experiencing the strange time triallist's 'time collapse', where all of a sudden, the timer on the bike computer seemed to be running too fast! I was giving it everything to try and get under 23 minutes...
...and as it turned out, I managed 22:59. This was good enough for 2nd place equal. Not a bad evening, all in all, and perhaps an indicator of returning form (which I felt was masked by the interruption by cattle during last week's event).
My next event may be the Finsbury Park '50' on the F1/25 - I'm supposed to be off on a bike tour for a couple of weeks. I say 'supposed' because the weather forecast for our chosen destination seems particularly diabolical.