I think this event replaced the regular Icknield RC 30k event that for the last few years has been run on two laps of a circuit that takes riders over Mentmore Hill. That’s always a bit of a shocker, because the descent has appalling road surfaces. This year’s event was held on the Astwood circuit course (two laps), with the Bike Bus as race HQ.
On the day, we had brilliant sunshine but there was a rather strong wind (it was 15-17mph during my ride, with gusts exceeding that. I had some technical issues though these didn’t affect my admittedly lacklustre performance. More on that later.
The version of the course was the same as we use for the NBRC club events - starting and finishing in Astwood. I got to the start rather early and rode up and down a bit.
Eventually my start came along and off I went. I was a bit disappointed that the wind didn’t really offer a great deal of assistance on the A422 section to Chicheley - it did at times, but there was quite a bit of twitchy crosswinds. In fact there was quite a bit of twitchiness throughout. I was slowed a bit by a group of cyclists holding up a car just as I reached the descent at 9 miles in, which was a bit frustrating but it probably didn’t cost me too much time.
I had planned to take the climb to Astwood fairly steady, but at this point I was really feeling the effort required with the headwind, and despite the encouragement of the cow bells donging as I crossed the line to begin the second lap, I had to ease up through Astwood before rejoining the A422. At this point I was caught by number 13 for two minutes.
I was clearly flagging by the time I turned at Chicheley and frankly I was just looking forward to the end! Number 15 came past me in the run up to North Crawley and was soon out of sight. After what seemed an eternity I reached tohe final climb to the finish line, which I reached absolutely knackered in a time of 53:21.
Full results are published at the CTT website.
As for the technical issue - I had a persistent clicking from my front H3, very much reminiscent of the defective H3 at the 2019 Duo Normand - in 2022 I discovered the alloy rim had detached from the carbon fibre. I’m pretty confident the noise was from the front wheel - I can tell it wasn’t transmission as it continued while not pedalling, and also the frequency increased with speed (and therefore faster wheel revolutions).
Back home I checked the wheel and didn’t find any problems with the rim (other than a small ding), but the bearing seemed far to tight. More on this later.