At the end of last season, we were casting around for a course to use instead of the Stony Stratford course, which was proving so unpopular, that we mostly cancelled the events owing to a lack of interest. The reason for its unpopularity was probably threefold: it has a stiff climb on the outbound leg, there's some rough road surface which makes the high speed sections of the return leg rather unpleasant and it's a non-standard distance (11.4 miles). There's also a lot of competition for parking with loads of paddle-boarders and other river-users.
After a lot of head-scratching, we decided to adopt a course developed and used by Team MK, the Cranfield course. This begins just outside Cranfield University and runs down to Newport Pagnell before finishing near the BikeBus. This isn't a particularly flat or quick course - check the link, and see the course profile below.
Still, we attracted 14 entries and all bar one rode the event. For my part, I thought the course was OK, quite tough in a character-developing sort of way. There are quite a few places where the road surface leaves a bit to be desired, and the 'climb' back up to North Crawley is slightly taxing at racing effort.
I did my best, and covered the 16.8km course in 25:43. Not particularly quick, but enought for 3rd= place, second place on veteran standard. I was reasonably pleased with my power for the event - 258W mormalised, so i'm hanging in there in the face of advancing years. I also looked faster than I actually was! (Photo by Jim Eastment). I'm feeling quite encouraged - I've been back on Athletica.ai for a few months now, and with a programme aimed at the Duo Normand in September, the training load is just beginning to ramp up, mostly with increased zone 2 sessions at the moment.
The wind on the evening wasn't particularly tough, so no excuses there! I'd chosen the H3 trispoke for the front wheel, mostly because it was set up already like that for the previous event, which was a windy '10' on the Brogborough course a week before.
The drops in the power trace below represent turns, and one point as I entered North Crawley and got crowded onto some crappy road surface by a motorist.
Full results are over at the North Bucks Road Club website.
