During the ride home from work it was apparent that the wind had strengthened during the day. Despite this, it was a pretty warm evening with all the signs that Spring had finally arrived. I made a mad dash up to Astwood on the time trial bike, without really paying attention to the choice of front wheel - I was riding front and rear trispokes, as usual.I could feel the wind tugging strongly on my front wheel, particularly when I rode past gaps in the hedgerows. Nevertheless I pressed on, as I have rarely been unable to race due to strong wind. I made it to the start line in time to see the first riders lining up to start. Grabbing a number and signing on, I awaited my start. I was the last rider off, and I suspect the wind had been continuing to rise while I waited. I was frustrated to have to stop for a line of cars before I could join the main road, shortly after the start. Once on the main road, I found the wind was a real problem on my front wheel, and I was unable to hold a decent straight line. I was worried about being blown into traffic, but in the end I decided to call it a day after nearly being blown off the bike twice in quick succession. I felt that discretion was most certainly the better part of valour.Riding home wasn't a great deal of fun - though I did see most of the guys powering along as though there was no wind at all! Maybe had I been riding a different front wheel... perhaps I was unfortunate in encountering a particularly strong gust on an exposed part of the course.

As I've whined about lately, this season has not got off to an excellent start. This event was only the second event I've started and the first I've finished in 2013. This has been due to a severe bout of back pain that has only abated in the last day or two, and which has sidelined me from training and indeed riding bikes for the best part of a month.  The last event I attempted was something of a disaster. Meanwhile, I've kept eating  as if I was actively training and racing with the consequent impact on body weight.Riders for this event were greeted by overcast skies and a chilly breeze. It was with some apprehension that I rode down to the event. I really don't feel fit at the moment, and I was concerned that my bad back would flare up again. We had quite a good turnout of 11 riders - I was off number 2.Heading out, I immediately found myself struggling to keep a decent pace - partly of course, this was due to the headwind (gentle though it was), but also I found it difficult to get comfortable in the aero position on the tri-bars. I'm not too worried about that, because early season events are always like that for me. I gingerly negotiated the first roundabout, successfully avoiding the potholes, and pressed on through the second roundabout and on to join the dual carriageway section. Once up there, the head wind was rather nagging and I had difficulty keeping the effort up. But after the turn  I found the return leg quite a bit quicker and more confortable. I eventually finished in 24:41. Not a particularly good performance, but somewhat better than I'd expected in the circumstances. More importantly, I finished without a recurrence of back pain. It can only get better from here, I hope.Results at the NBRC website.

Well, it's unfortunate, but my season has begun with a whimper rather than a bang.I've been suffering from the latest bout of lower back pain, but I'd promised Tony I'd show up for this, the first in the NBRC series of time trial events. Notionally a medium gear event, riders usually pitch up with their regular time trial bikes. I cycled over, 18 miles in cold and wet conditions, and by the time I arrived, I seriously doubted I'd make any kind of impression. Other than a bad one.To be honest, the opening mile or so were reasonably OK, and crouching over the tribars wasn't in itself particularly uncomfortable. But when I had been through Beachampton, I found I was unable to race uphill to Nash, and indeed, by the time I passed through Nash I'd had enough and down-geared to offer a degree of pedalling comfort.Accordingly I cruised back down the hill, mostly suffering an acute sense of embarrassment because of passing club runs (which seemed to be going faster than me). I finished with a less than impressive 33:33 for last place. Results over at the NBRC website.

This event is usually the high point in two-up time trialling for many riders, including Team Grumpy, the informal name for the regular 2-up partnership between Gerry and I. We've ridden the event for 9 of the last 10 editions of this event, based in Marigny, Normandy. The course itself is a terrific one, with fast sections, short but tough climbs and equally short but spine-tingling descents all within 54.3km.

On the back of a frankly lacklustre season, we (Team Grumpy, a.k.a Gerry and Robert) were uncertain how things would go for them at the 2011 edition of the Duo Normand, the 30th time the event has been run (and the 8th in which Team Grumpy has competed). As usual, signing on was a bunfight in a large marquee in the centre of Marigny. On the day, we successfully dodged some quite heavy showers by decamping to the Sport Bar for a coffee while we waited out the worst of the showers.

We woke at 7am, had a quick breakfast and packed the car.  Then we drove over to Marigny in convoy with Gerry - this didn't take long.  In Marigny, we parked in our usual spot, not far from the start area.  We wandered down to see the first unlicenced rider start, at 8.35.  We were pretty glad we were in the Corpo category, as with clear skies and no wind, it was really very cold.

Team Grumpy have been riding the Duo Normand since 2003, only missing one year since then. We've had quite good placings in that time, either in the Veteran or Corporate categories. We came second in the corporate category last year, but that doesn't quite indicate the magnitude of the whipping we got from the winners! The Duo Normand website has started listing riders registered to ride. At the moment there are only two teams in the Corporatif category, one being Team Grumpy. Plenty of time for more entries to flood in, though. So is there anything to be said in a preview for this event?Well, we're staying near Cerisy La Salle - in the same location as last year - though our travel plans will preclude any significant 2-up technique practice before the event. And Team Grumpy's 2-up outings this season have been less than stellar (the Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up ‘25′ and the Icknield 32k). I guess we're just hoping that we've done it so long that we'll just fall naturally back into the swing of things.As usual, we'll take the opportunity to do a little exploration of the Normandy countryside on our tandem, see for example 2008 and 2009, enjoying the local food and drink, particularly the moules et frites, a particular favourite of mine.  And of course, drinking freely of the Team Grumpy official energy drink.Finally, for those who've never ridden the Duo Normand and want to see what the course is like from the rider's perspective, can I recommend the world's most unlikely video, which we dubbed Silent Movie.  This was recorded on a small video camera mounted on Gerry's handlebars.Here are our previous performances:2009 - CorporatifsWe may have been second, but just look at that margin!  The BikeRadar team of Jones and Coomber came flying past us...and can be seen in the video of the event.1 COOMBER Robin - JONES Jeff 01:15:222 ORAM Gerard - SAUNDERS Robert 01:25:022008 - CorporatifsBy 2008, Gerry had persuaded me to switch to the Corporatifs category.  Not entirely sure why, but the effect is to ride at a better time of day than the Unlicenced and Veteran categories.  Also the Veterans category has no handicapping.  The guys who won rode a storming race, particularly since they didn't look much like time triallists and were riding road bikes with clip on extensions.

Here are a couple of other video segments, taken from the roadside at the 2008 Duo Normand.  Both videos were taken with a pretty basic 5Mp Kodak camera by Carol (who in 2009 had to drive the support car), and both clips are mercifully short, compared to the 2009 feature film. The first clip shows us leaving the start ramp, and climbing up the little lane at the start of the race.

Team Grumpy rode the Duo Normand again in 2009 (see this story, and also the Team Grumpy blog and website). Silent Movie is my first effort at editing video footage - in this case recorded from a video camera attached to "Grumpy" Art Vanderlay's tri-bars.  Thus, you can periodically see my backside and legs, but "Grumpy" Art doesn't feature much at all. I edited the video using the Linux package kdenlive, and rendered it as a 320x240 pixel flash video. Be warned, this is a 90' video, and if bandwidth issues result, I'll need to unpublish this article.  It's also rather boring for those not interested in the Duo Normand! The video seems to play well with Firefox on Linux and WinXP.  IE8 on WinXP seems to throw a wobbly about the Flash Player, though after installing Flash Player 10 it worked OK.  Haven't tried other browser/OS combinations yet.

This year, we had little expectation of a good performance in the Duo Normand time trial. You can read reports of previous events over at the Team Grumpy web pages and the Team Grumpy Blog, as well as the preview of the race.

One addition this year was that we planned to record a video by strapping a small video camera to the tri-bars - if this can be made into manageable file size, I may post it on the web.

As usual, pressure of work led to frantic packing on the morning of departure.  This was followed by the drive to Portsmouth for the Brittany Ferries afternoon sailing to Cherbourg.  We arrived with plenty of time to spare (about 1h30!).  As was the case last year, we were the last car on, and so first off at Cherbourg.

Team Grumpy approached this year's Duo Normand with the expectation that we'd do less well than in previous years - both riders have had less than stellar seasons.  In the event, we did better than we expected, I think, despite being trounced by a seriously strong team riding for BikeRadar.com (Robin Coomber and Jeff Jones), who rode a superb race, taking the category record with 1:15:22.

Two main issues concerned us - firstly, we received emails the day before we set off for France saying that a following car was compusory (we had to drag Carol into this role) and secondly, rumours abounded that the UCI bike regulations would be enforced in all categories.  The latter rumour caused us some concern, and a day or so before the event, we made final checks that our bikes complied.

The Duo Normand two-up team time trial is held annually in September on a 54.3km circuit based in the Normandy town of Marigny.  from a British time triallist's point of view, it's a spectacular event - not only because of the numbers of spectators, but because of the large numbers of competitors (in many categories from unlicenced to professional) and the virtually closed roads.  All the teams can have a following car in case of mechanical problems, though Team Grumpy have never availed themselves of this in the 5 occasions we've ridden it.

This year's Duo Normand time trial will be held on 21st September, and after a year's absence, Team Grumpy (a.k.a. Gerry Oram and me) will be competing again.  For a change, we are entered in the Corporate category instead of the Veteran category (we may revert to veteran if we continue to be the sole team in our category!).