Four of us headed off from CSS to hopefully set a new Box Hill record.
A nice (if cold) ride out through Headley and Little Switzerland. Quiet roads, few chickens, a small cow, some horses and a few birds.
We approached the foot of Box Hill. And we're off! After an initial blur of speed (approx 7 mph) we settled into a more steady 6 mph. The bunch stayed together for most of the ascent. Rachel declared she was going to drop back a little. We were most un Contador and slowed a little to keep Rachel with us. Probably nudging 5 mph....Then it happened. With about half a mile to go Rachel turned up the wick and shot three yards off the front blasting out a mega 7 mph. We couldn't catch her and she crowned the top of the hill first. What a sandbagger!
New record for slowest victory sprint
We met Lucy at the top of the hill, she was suffering early onstage hypothermia having done the Banstead 5k a little earlier. So we set off and with the extra person in tow the peloton really came alive and I think (though I had no speedo) we might've hit maybe 15 mph at one point on our way back to Walton. Once there I was stupid enough to set up outside the caff and we had to huddle round our coffees, hot chocolates etc to keep warm. Rachel's bacon sarnie looked good, Marky Mark went for a jacket potato, prawns and salad. Neil, lemon cake, Lucy - some kinda flapjack thingie and I went for Rudolf's Reward (thanks Rachel - very kind of you
).
Replenished we headed off into a cold headwind. On the run into Coulsdon we got a bit crazy and managed to overtake an older lady who was blatting along the pavement on her electric whizzer thingie. Marky Mark was sure she gave us the finger as we passed her on the line. Fair enough like, I'd have been pi55ed too to lose a sprint like that.
Lucy turned for home and the rest of us booted on towards Purley and beyond. Bloody good fun, thanks folks.
I'm not around next two weeks but will do Andrew's Part 1 on Nov 6 - albeit at a slower pace. See ya.
Despite it being a cold day, it was good to see so many out.
I'm not fully over the lurgy I got this week. Down on pace and peak HR.
Perhaps I should have told Sylv I wasn't contesting the sprint - see above. He sat on my wheel waiting for me to go all out for the sign, and missed out when I didn't.
Dan, please write to Santa and ask him for some new shorts. Yours are starting to wear just a little thin.
) at the junction with the road from Gatton - and were run over by a f*********** 4x4. I think they did swerve but they still just clipped my keys: forturnately the keys are still working though the little light is now prone to come on and stay on and needs a bit of persuasion to turn off again.
