New Year's Day '10' 2026

It may have been ever so slightly warmer than the previous day, but the riders faced really bitterly cold conditions, exacerbated by a nagging cross wind for most of this event on the Stoke Hammond course. Of the seven entrants, we only had one DNS. I suspect most of us wished we had decided to DNS as we lined up at the start, shivering! 

I was riding my P3 with front and rear trispokes, 11-speed eTap and Assioma power meter pedals. I raced in a long sleeved skinsuite with kneewarmers and a long sleeve baselayer. Winter overshoes and light gloves.

For me this was something of a mixed bag in terms of performance. I did find the cold a bit of a problem, but mostly because it was unpleasant to breathe in deeply (I finished with a bit of a cough). I got up to speed pretty quickly, then eased back for the first roundabout (a left turn). Despite not having seen any ice on the roads riding out, I was still a bit concerned there might be some residual ice out on the more exposed sections of the course (despite evidence of road salting. My power was back up as I climbed up to second RAB which is a left turn onto the dual carriageway section. This undulates and I was finding it difficult to keep up the effort through the descents and short climbs. with all the really cold air reaching my lungs!

After the third RAB, there's a short rise to the turn RAB, and here I was of the extensions and trying to lift things a bit. Once round the turn, my speed picked up - I think there was a little help from the (mostly) cross wind. Approaching the rise to the RAB where we turn right off the dual carriageway, I could see I was whacking out some good power numbers. Oh, if I'd been able to do more of that!

Finally on to the finishing straight, where I made a final effort to reach the finish line. I finished with 25:53. On any other day, i'd be a bit disappointed with that, but the cold conditions really cost me.

At least there wasn't any ice, and all six riders finished safely. My time was good enough for first place on actual and on standard.