Catford 10

[Andrew G]

Four of us on the Tonbridge Bypass this morning for the Catford 10. A downhill slip road start, which is nice, but it has a bit of a drag out to the turn and a draggy climb to the turn roundabout. This used to be a super fast course many years ago with summer evening races and nice smooth tarmac, now there's one race in April at the crack of dawn and the road surface is terrible in places on the out leg.

Cold morning, car said 3 degrees but at least I was a later starter today, Mark was off second man clearing the frost of the road . Still a leg and arm warmer and long finger gloves day for me.

Nasty head wind on the out leg and as first proper race of the year I was struggling up the drag, then grovelled up the slip road to the turn. Return journey was better but I was caught by Pete Tadros (hoped to keep him behind me) just before the finish flag.

Addiscombe times all looked decidedly average for us so will see what the others say about their races. Mine felt very much like a start of season race on a cold morning.

George Brent 21.24
Mark McLaughlin 23.58
Andrew Green 24.05
Jon Hemming 24.10

Pete Tadros won with 19.56

Shame Jo Rowsell was a DNS as it would have been nice to be in the same race as a World Champion and World Record holder.

Correction: Erick Rowsell won with 19.20 - his time wasnt up when I left as he was a reserve and they were working their way back through the timings for his result when I headed off.

[carl f]

Well done Andrew should spin the legs out nice for tomorrow, here's hoping to no rain!

[Phil H]

[quote="carl f"]Well done Andrew should spin the legs out nice for tomorrow, here's hoping to no rain!

[Andrew G]

In that case Phil I shall expect you to be riding a massive fixed gear with the most legally narrow bars allowed tomorrow .

[Phil H]

I'm still getting used to the position I've got.

Seems a nice chap. Approachable. He was confirming his plan to go for the HPV speed record this year. In theory he could reach 100mph.

[Jon H]

Well, apart from speedy George, you could have thrown a blanket over the Addiscombe riders.

Actually, that would have been quite nice; it was fffffreezing.
When I was getting ready I had full finger windstopper gloves to put on, then saw someone riding off with bare hands. So, I thought to myself "maybe it's not really that cold and I'm just being a wuss", and put lycra track-mitts on instead. Wrong; I couldn't feel my finger by the end!