In the days leading up to this opening event in the North Bucks Road Club's evening TT series, the weather forecast was looking pretty grim with cold and wet conditions predicted. On the day however, this all turned round and we had dry and sunny conditions, but with a pretty strong and blustery wind that promised a hard ride back from the turn. I chose to ride my P5 TT bike, but I swapped out its 90mm deep rim front wheel for an H3 trispoke as I thought that might be a bit better in the blustery conditions.
I rode out to the meeting point quite early so that I'd have time to check things out on the course. I rode down to the first roundabout and back, which was enough to confirm that it would be quick to the turn and a tough ride back - indeed I found it difficult to use the aero extensions due to the head wind. Still, the strength of the wind had been falling through the afternoon, so maybe things would be a bit easier than I expected.
The start descent was always likely to be a bit dodgy given the blustery wind, so I took this carefully - possibly a bit too carefully. Once I was past the meeting point at the bottom of the hill, I found the tail wind pretty helpful and I was able to stay in the aero position most of the time. There are traffic lights at a (little-used) pedestrian crossing on this course, and I was alarmed to see them at red as I approached but fortunately they switched to green just before I got there. So that was OK.
I had a pretty clear run to the turn, but got a bit balked by an annoying motorist who insisted on passing me right before the roundabout then had to stop. I don't suppose that cost me me much time.
Round the turn and I was in the full force of the head wind for thereturn leg. It wasn't just strong but very gusty which made riding on the aero extentions difficult or impossible for some of the time. I just buckled down and ground out a big gear.
I finished in 23:39, which I was quite pleased with, given the windy conditions. I was second out of 10 starters, though it has to be noted that the margin between my time and the winner's time was over 3 minutes. Blimey!
There was the added 'interest' of clouds of small insects near the finish - they were getting in my eyes and mouth and pinging audibly off my helmet. I've no idea what they were (despite being a "trained entomologist"), but they seemed to be rising from the fields.
Full results at the NBRC website. Graphs of the ride data below from intervals.icu - click to enlarge.
