Freshly returned from my holiday jaunt to Normandy, I was somewhat dismayed so see the heavy rain that greeted me as I rode over to the Stoke Hammond course. It did stop by the time we raced, but by then I was really quite cold. Indeed it took me until I got onto the dual carriageway before my legs felt like they were limbering up.
As I was off number 1 of 5 riders, I didn’t have a rider to chase. As I rounded the turn, I could see other riders apparently going rather better than I was! I duly buckled down and made a bit more of an effort. Tom Krause later said I looked good at that point, so appearances can clearly be deceptive!
I came in with 23:58, a rather poor time I think, for third place.
One amusing point was on the rise up to the dual carriageway, there have been some road repairs (I think using the council’s new velocity patching) that have resulted in some pronounced lumps in the road. I noted that some wag had been out thare painting the white triangles associated with speed bumps on it!