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ltc
It was a bit of a stressful day - up with the toddler at 530 as he refuses to go back to sleep and wife is in desperate need of more sleep, so scrape myself up and onto the sofa, get weeman some breakfast and guiltily plug him into some telly, while I half doze on the sofa beside him. Throw some coffee down me, then start running around like a twat trying to get the last bits organised and mess around with my setup, and get everything loaded into the car in time for my wife to get to an appointment. The plan was to then meet her after the appointment to hand over toddler and get to the start. None of this is interesting, but not quite the relaxed start to the day you’d hope for!
Oh, and the car reads 28c when I get in.
Drive to meet wife, hand over weeman in a car park like some weird hostage exchange.
I misunderstood the email and thought there was no parking at the start, so parked 6 miles away in Boroughbridge and rode in. Which was fine, just extra stress when you’re short on time. But it was a handy warm up. I was mostly paranoid about being anywhere near the course when people were riding on it. The next stress, as silly as it is, was getting my skinsuit on without any help. But I managed that in the public loos, and managed it without ripping any massive holes in it, which is always a relief!
Get to the start, find the organisers and sign in. The lovey ladies even pin my number on. The vibe is super friendly and chilled out. Despite everyone walking around in fancy gear, with even fancier looking bikes, everyone is dead friendly and the atmosphere is very casual - another big relief.
Drink water. Scoff a gel. Mill around. And then it’s only 10 mins before my start time. Roll around for a bit and then wheel over to the start. I’d never done a TT start with someone holding you up, but it went fine, apart from the minor panic with 20 seconds to go, rushing to switch my Garmin on (forgetting to record the effort, and therefore losing the evidence on Strava would of course render the whole thing pointless).
Managed to set off hard and hung on. Spent the whole time, mouth agape slavering everywhere and generally breathing pretty hard. Tried to be very strict about keeping in the saddle and in position, and I think apart from the turnarounds I managed it. I was really chuffed with my bike handling on the turns - I’m usually a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to leaning in, but with a fresh set of GP5000 feeling nice and grippy, and race day adrenaline flowing I felt like I gave them a good shot. Also gave it full beans trying to sprint out of them as well which the marshals seemed to enjoy. I have a tendency to shout things at myself in these moments, this time it was just a simple “c’mon” through gritted teeth, and the marshals kindly reciprocated with things like “go on lad!”. Minor as it is - it definitely helps to hear the encouragement. I think I was 31.29 at the halfway turnaround, which was quite a surprise, and after that I really focused down as I felt like I might manage to hang on to the 23mph average.
There’s nothing particularly interesting to say about the effort, other than I tried to keep going and it seemed to work. The last stretch is a segment on Strava called something like “there goes my average speed” which was in the front of my mind as I tried to totally empty the tank in the last two miles.
I went over the finish line in 1:04:46, which I’m really bloody chuffed with tbh. Some other riders told me it’s a tough course, and if I can go below 1:05 here, I’ll “easily” go under the hour in 2 weeks at the Bramley Wheelers CC 25 near Thirsk. So obviously I’ve signed up to that! Can’t possibly turn down the prospect of sneaking in a sub hour 25.
The tips on my position off my mate really helped, I felt a lot better. I tried to focus on “shrugging” my head down between my shoulders like my mate told me to. It felt like it made a massive difference, but how much of that actually saved Watts vs the placebo effect I don’t exactly know. But I did feel like I could feel the resistance drop when I got my head properly into place. I also tried to scope my position in a reflection when warming up, and I’m significantly flatter than the test photos in the hallway looked. So that’s good!
Aside from the position, I’m sure the helmet and skinsuit also made a massive difference. The skinsuit is a bloody lovely piece of kit. By far the nicest cycling gear I’ve ever worn! Thanks @Aldosterone
The other massive difference was the saddle off @Sainsburys_Ed - did exactly what I wanted it to - in relieving the pressure points when in the aero position.
All in all, it felt like a success. Met some nice people, scoped out what seems to be a very friendly, chilled out scene (which is exactly what I’m after), and got to exert myself in a competitive/non-competitive way. I like competing in stuff, as it makes you try hard, I just want to do it in an environment where no one else really cares how well or badly anyone else does.
Well chuffed!
One minor thing was that I felt pretty fine afterwards, the cycle back to the car had an average of 22mph still. But later in the evening I felt, understandably, totally fucking rinsed.