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He rode a 94" fixed, which most would find too high
That would be spot on for me in the unlikely event that I was going to get round there at just over 24mph. It's always a compromise because while Hawthorn Hill is slow, there's a fairly long fast bit on the Drift Road which is wasted if you just gear for going up.
Somebody should invent a mechanism which allows you quickly to change gear part way through a race 🤔
gbj_tester
Possibly forum user christono is too modest to post his recent ride in this thread, so I will do it for him.
I invited all those who completed the Hard Day in January ride to take part in the Hounslow's Good Friday Club 25. I did point out to them all that if they could cope with the HDiJ they should be easily capable of putting up a respectable 25 time, and that anyone doing tough rides like that early in the year seemed to me to be wasting a lot of hard effort if they didn't bother to race.
Well, the outcome was that only christono took up the invitation, but he certainly justified what I had said. Riding first ever 25, on an undulating and tricky course, he finished in 1.2.00.
This included going off course twice: we don't know how much time was lost, but even the break in rhythm alone would make a measurable difference. He rode a 94" fixed, which most would find too high -it did look a bit tough on the final ascent of Hawthorn Hill (see photo, note- this pic gives a false impression of the gradient), but clearly he must have coped with it everywhere else.
In fact he had already proved my prediction the week before our event by recording 22.30 on the Q10/19, which seems pretty phenomenal for a first ever TT.