Birkenhead North End CC 25 - 12 July

[SteveD]

I was in North Wales this weekend for the Eisteddfod at Llangollen so decided to try out yet another course I hadn't ridden before, though I do know the roads well. The course was the D25/6 which uses the Wrexham (my home town during my school years) bypass and is a simple out and home stretch of dual carriageway. The roads are generally undulating but with one fairly substantial drag, but more of this later.

Knowing that I would have a late night on the Saturday I had asked for a late start which the event organiser took account of and put me about eight riders from the end. Given that there was several hours of heavy rain during Saturday evening and the forecast said that this would clear during the early morning a late start began to look like a good thing. Sunday morning started out dry and calm but as the event went on the wind rose steadily to a very stiff breeze by the time I was off - so much for the late start. The wind direction indicated a hard outward leg and an easier return.

As it turned out the first few miles were ok being slightly downhill until the big drag (about a mile long). The drag starts off gently but gets steeper as it goes on so I was planning on my usual steady working down through gears. A good plan except I ran out of gears half way up by which time I was down to 13 mph and the rest of the climb was a complete grovel turning more and more into the wind. It didn't get any better over the top as it was into the wind and I was struggling to maintain 20 mph, though there was some relief for the last couple of generally downhill miles to the turn. Once round the turn it was much better at 25mph uphill from the turn. Hit 37 mph down the first dip and 40 mph all the way down the big drag - great fun but not fast enough the make up for the outward leg. The end result was 1:01:16 which was ok in the conditions, though I was over geared going out and under geared coming back.

Even on a good day this course is not going to be as fast as either the R25/7 Usk/Monmouth or the U46B Swindon courses.

[tel]

Good to see you are flying the Agreeable flag around North Wales-one for me to avoid I think. Maybe Swindon might be more my cup of tea.

Hope to see you soon-entered Charlooteville 10 and hope to do the NHRC 25 towards the end of August.

Terry