I don't do many open events these days, mostly because there are just fewer events (and courses) local to me. This event was another Veterans Time Trial Association 10 mile event on the popular (but doomed) F11/10 course. I say doomed because a housing development at the second turn is going to bring with it a set of traffic lights rendering the course unusable to cycling time trial events.
After a period of extremely hot weather, the morning of the event dawned with overcast and rather windy conditions. But at least the temperature was pretty much ideal. I had decided to ride over to the event HQ, which is about 22 miles. Adding a 'warmup' to that meant I'd covered 28 miles by the time I lined up at the start. I was at the start in time to have a good chat with my minute man! I was riding my Cervelo P5 time trial bike because the front tyre of my P3 (which I'd intended to ride) had an evident split as a result of my puncture on the preceding Wednesday.
At 6.15am, when I set off, I don't think I'd have noticed this split if I didn't have a bright pink TPU tube!
The F11/10 is a fast course owing to a striking descent about halfway in that you don't have to ride back up. But before then, you have a couple of miles to the first turn, this on a rough road surface and on the day there was a nagging headwind. I ended up toughing this out with the highest power numbers of this event. To slow riders down still further, the first turn is a double roundabout underpass that has really poor visibility as you reach the first roundabout. Having slowed right down (appropriately, since there was a car coming!), I rode up the slip road on the other side and tried to keep my momentum goind as best I could.
At around the halfway mark, the descent started, and I banged the bike into top gear and tried to get down as quickly as possibly - a bit twitchy at times due to the wind, but nothing really untoward. On to the second turn, which is a single roundabout with some dodgy road surfaces. Despite motor traffic levels being pretty light at this time on a Sunday morning, a car pulled out in front of me after I'd entered the roundabout which I found a little annoying.
Then it was on to the final couple of miles, with the head wind again. It seemed particularly hard for the last mile.
Anyway, I finished in 22:59, my fastest 10 mile TT this year. I was reasonably pleased.
There are a couple of take-homes - firstly, I'm still not feeling really comfortable on the aero extensions, so some further modifications are in order. Secondly the Aduro high mount came a bit loose at some point in the ride. Not critical, but is something that needs attention.