Mersey Roads CC 24 Hr - 19-20/07/14

[SteveD]

Went up north to see if I could improve on my championship distance. The weather forecast was terrible for the weekend and sure enough it rained all Saturday morning. However, it had more or less stopped by the start of the event and the forecast looked slightly better so I decided to start in cool muggy conditions.

The first hour was ok but then it rained fairly hard for around two and a half hours which was no fun at all. I tried to maintain a decent pace through the rain and once it stopped things began to improve. Further heavy rain was forecast for the evening but passed by to the west and the forecast was now saying it wouldn't rain again during the event. Things were ok for around four or five hours but I blew horrifically around the 95 mile mark - the first time this has happened in a 24 but probably due to the effort involved in riding in the rain. I struggled on for some time through the night and early morning but I was going slower and slower. It became clear that I was not going to improve my distance (and I felt pretty grim) so I called it a day after about 250 miles - at least I got some tough training miles.

[Andrew G]

Bad luck Steve. I saw your distance and knew you must have packed, I thought it was probably a bit of a brain fatigue thing after the ESCA 24 as they really fry your brain for a very long time afterwards. I hadn't realised you had such grotty weather for it though.

[tel]

]I saw the weather forecast and I thought that you probably wouldn`t start but all the organisation that goes into it I understand why you did.

Bad luck but maybe you have got the 24hr thing out of your system now-but you`ll probably back next year.

See you soon.

Terry