Tour of Cambridgeshire TT, 06/06/15

[Jon H]

Something a bit different to the normal CTT events yesterday; a closed road TT which was the qualify for UCI MAMIL world championships (well, OK amateur world championships) to be held in Denmark later in the year. First time one of these has been held in the UK, based at Peterborough showground.

So, 700 competitors, chip timing, 30 second start intervals, seeding by age, a turbo-trainer warm-up area, a start ramp inside an exhibition hall, and a 16.5 mile closed roads sporting course. Quite a feat of organisation and as far as I saw it all went off well.

I wasn't bothered about warming up using the turbo trainers provided, so I just rode around the showground for a while, then went and got my timing chip fitted and chilled out watching the spectacle.

With no seeding by ability and 30 sec intervals I was expecting there to be a lot of catching going on, but strangely I had quite a lonely ride. The guy behind me caught me after about 2 miles (and went on to get 4th in our age category), and I could see my 30 second man from about 3 miles until about 10 miles when I caught him. Apart from that it was like riding with the road all to myself.

It was hard work going out into a headwind, then round a lumpy little square of roads, then back to the showground with a roaring tailwind. Finished in 43:29 which was around mid-field in my age group, so didn't make the top 25% to qualify for the world championship (I wasn't expecting to).

The overall winner was Matt Botterill (not a huge surprise) in 34:11.

Strava linky here https://www.strava.com/activities/319749682/overview

[Andrew G]

This sounds like it was quite good fun. Probably enter if they do it again, was it nice doing the whole start ramp thing?

[Jon H]

Yeah, it was good fun as a one-off big event. But for anyone (like me) who didn't have any serious chance of getting an age-group medal or intentions of qualifying for world championships, it was just a bit of ego-stroking (a bit like riding in one of the national championships when you're an average club rider). If it was just down the road I'd do it again, but it was 5+ hours driving for less than an hour of riding and basically took up the whole day.

[Andrew G]

Ouch, yes that drive is a big spanner in the works, just clocked you said Peterborough so not our side of Cambridgeshire.