by Jon H » Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:22 am
Thanks to Tim, Maria, Joyce et al for a well organised event.
Only hiccup from my point of view was getting stuck in traffic, first getting through Shirley and then on the A22, which meant Maria & I arrived at Holmwood after our scheduled start time. Still, we signed on and started at the back of the field behind all the solos. My warmup consisted of riding about 20 metres from the car to the start, then running into the bushes for a pee. Not quite ideal preparation.
Still we'd discussed some tactics, which involved me riding my road bike instead of TT bike to give more shelter, Maria shouting either "Go" or "Easy", and our trump card which was Maria going off first to set the initial pace and avoiding the possibility of me dropping her by starting too fast.
Well, off we went, and I came through onto the front at the crest of the first little drag after the start as planned. The shouts of "Go" started, and outweighed the shouts of "Easy", which only happened towards the end of some the drags and were actually a relief as I could soft pedal for a bit until the "Go" started again. In the last couple of miles all I could hear was heavy breathing from behind, so I could tell it was hurting but Maria was hanging in there. I led her out down the final downhill to the finish at 33mph in top gear, at which point she had enough left in the tank to come through off my wheel to cross the finish line ahead of me.
Quite pleased with our time of 24:52 in view of the no warm-up fiasco, but that dastardly duo of Amy Robinson and Keith Knight pipped us to it by 12 seconds, so well done to them.