Crawley Wheelers spoco 41, 22/05/11

[Jon H]

Carl & I were both down at Handcross yesterday for the Crawley Wheelers spoco 41.

This winds around the roads of Sussex on a fairly complicated course; Handcross/Cowfold/West Grinstead/Steyning/Beeding Court/Henfield/Shaves Wood/North
Henfield/Cowfold/Handcross. Nothing too technical, but rolling all the time and enough to keep the mind focused.

Twas a bit rainy when I left home, deteriorating into peeing in down on the drive through Croydon and down the M23. Almost enough to make me turn round and go back to bed, but not quite. At the HQ it seemed to be brightening up, although the roads were still pretty wet for the first half of the course.

Quite a lonely ride for me; I caught my 3-minute man Bryn Tully, and the 5, 6 & 0 behind caught me. At Henfield on the way back there is a short section where it's out and back to a roundabout, and as I was coming back I could see a line of 3 or 4 riders heading to the turn. For the final 10 miles I was expecting them to come past me, but none of them did.

Carl did a storming ride to finish in 1:43:40 to get 7th place, 8 minutes behind the winner Steve Dennis.

I did a mid-field 1:53:56, a few places behind Mulberry's 1:52:04.

Enjoyed that a lot more than bashing up and down the A11 the previous afternoon.

[carl f]

Great event this,much more marshalls out there to prevent another f"@k up by myself again .
Lovely course all be it a lumpy little number and once again pretty windy in places and quite a nasty drag up to the finish line just outside Handcross
Thanks Jon well done to you as well. Steve Dennis came passed me at around 57k's whilst i was just beginning to suffer a bit (i was his 6 min man!) looking very smooth indeed......