4 Up Clarencourt TT

[Marek]

Evening sets in and all I can think about is my poor tired old legs. Turned up at 12 to meet my team, Jon Hemming, Paul Hone and Max. Unfortunately Max was running late due to troubles on the M25 and Paul was a bit late, so Jon and I set off and did a lap of the course. I have not ridden with Jon before but he was riding in a really smooth style and was keeping a good pace on the warm up lap, 'this bodes well for a good time I felt on one hand, on the other I was worried about keeping up'.

Max turned up at about 1pm and then in the car park with all the ACC riders I forgot to sign on as I was having a good chat. Then Paul tells me it is about a 20min ride to the start. A quick rush to the car to get my licence, then sign on and then we all headed off for the start line. This meant we had quite a good warm up to the start and managed to decide how we were going to play the event with the first man peeling off to the right when he was cooked.

We arrived at the start line with about a minute to spare, then it was 5, 4, 3 ,2 ,1 go. The start was fast with Jon Hemming pulling us out of the starting blocks at a good old pace. The first three minutes of any race are hard, and when it is all guns blazing from the off it takes a bit of time for heart rate, breathing and brain to normalise (for the scientific it is almost exactly 3 minutes).

The first obstacle that we encountered on our trip was just after the really sharp turn out of Alfold. Here we came across two horse riders, as we approached, one of the horses got spooked and leared up across the road. We all came to a standstill and waited for the horse to calm down. Paul then crept through and the other horse started to get a bit lary, when that had calmed the rest of us rushed through and carried on. I reckon we lost about 1.5mins or so due to this incident.

As we were coming to the end of the first lap it was becoming evident that Max was having a good day, I was having an average day, Paul was starting to puff and Jon was having difficulties. Every time Max came through the pace picked up and Jon could not hold his wheel, this meant he was effectively having to have two turns as he was not getting much drafting benefit from Max. As we went over the line for the first lap we were all ok, well as ok as you can be when some mad Spaniard is roasting your legs on a spit.

As we came to the sharp corner again after Alfold Jon was having severe difficulties, a quick check and he was cooked, cramp was setting in so he told us to go on without him as we were allowed to finish with three. The look on Paul Hones face when Jon went away was not good, I think Paul was about to ask for the same let off, now he was in for the long run.

Everytime we came to a hill Max would ease away, Paul and I had to shout him to slow so that we could get back on. We were getting pretty tired now and very ragged. I did my best on the flats and downhills and we all managed to take our turns, well in between Max who was doing one on one off, and Paul and I were doing less and less.

The last section which takes in the Kirdford circuit felt like it was going on forever and after the final hill it was onto the drag into the finish. The relief of finishing was fantastic.

After we finished we had to wait and see how the Dave K, AJ, Sylv and Toks group got on. Well at the finish line Ajay was already there, washed showered and looking imaculate. He had done his bit for the first lap and then he had given the others free reign to see what they could do. It was not long before the sound of Dave Kennetts wurring disc wheel brought Toks and Sylvain zooming over the line.

We worked out that they had beaten our group by a couple of minutes, probably about the time that we got caught behind the horse. Back at the village hall we checked the times. Our group had managed to do a faster first lap than AJs group, but then they had blasted the second lap. Apparently Dave K was leading the way with his ultra smooth style.

The last ACC group to go off consisted of Ian Munnery, Shadow, Gavin B and Chris Scarlett. I am not sure of their time but apparently Gavin had to sacrifice himself and the others left him to wind his way back on his own. Shadow looked like he had been on a leisurely ride with his grandma and Ian Munnery was the opposite indicating that it was a hard old ride. So overall it looks like all groups dropped or lost a rider but managed to finish in respectable times.

After the race in the Village Hall, Max came up to me and said that his legs were starting to hurt. I indicated that my legs had started to hurt on the second lap when he was kicking our butts up every drag, he walked away sheepishly, but if I was him I would have told me to train harder.

Great fun and good to see so many ACCers out; I don't have the exact times but I am sure someone will post them soon.

Cheers

Marek....

[DavidKennett]

Thanks for the kind comments Marek, but needed the help of the others.

Cheers Ajay, Toks and Sylain - good team work


Pos TEAMS 1st Lap Time Finish Time
1 0 VC Meudon 00:38:53 01:17:48
Steve Richards, Warren Jesse, Tim Elverson, David Creeggan
2 0 London Dynamo Team C 00:38:46 01:18:09
Paul Callinan, Richard Simmonds, Guy Powdrill, Ian Paine
3 0 London Dynamo B Team 00:39:32 01:19:26
David Struele, Gavin Ryan, Gordon Kenneway, Stuart Spies
4 0 Norwood Paragon T Team 00:39:16 01:19:41
Steve Calland, Marcus Brueton, Mike Hawkins, Russell Painter
5 0 Twickenham CC 00:41:15 01:23:03
Jeff Baird, Dave Grifiths, Martin Hulbert, Mark McManus
6 0 Southdown/VC Meudon 00:41:23 01:23:04
Tim Costello , Mark Bremner, Rob Cranstone Pete Connelly
7 0 Dan Bennett 00:41:28 01:23:54
Dan Bennett,Graham Merritt, Dave White, Steve Bullmore
8 0 London Dynamo A Team 00:42:31 01:24:44
David Gardiner, Simon Wright,Adam Stone, Jason Baran
[color=red]9 0 Addiscombe CC Team B 00:43:15 01:25:38 [/color]
Ajay Khandelwai, Dave Lombari, Sylvain Garde, Toks Adesanya
[color=red]10 0 Addiscombe CC 00:43:12 01:27:37 [/color]
Jon Hemming, Paul Hone, Max Ramirez, Marek Siwicki
11 0 Kingston Wheelers A 00:00:00 01:28:04
Andrew Bye, Chris Salt, Tarik Djeddour, Thorsten Classen
12 0 Kingston Wheelers B 00:43:57 01:28:31
Tim Lawn, Lawrence Smith, Gafyn MacMaillan, Graham Sheridan
13 0 Brighton Excelsior CC 00:44:33 01:28:56
Paul Gosling, George Higgs, Roy Page, Bruce Samuel
14 0 Thames Velo A 00:45:10 01:30:31
Mike Inder, Ian Lowe, Paul Stonell, Per Porter
15 0 Epsom CC 00:45:04 01:31:39
Richard Varian, John Fox, Andy Ellis, Michael Groom
16 0 Oxford Uni CC 00:51:49 01:32:11
Paul Tucker, John Tuckett, David Mcgraw, Stephan Pantos
17 0 Thames Velo B 00:46:51 01:35:05
John Nicholls, Martin Porter, Mike Mills, Paul Hartigan
[color=red]18 0 Addiscombe CC Team C 00:48:16 01:36:44 [/color]
Alan Malarky, Steve Broomfield, Ian Munnery, Gavin Beveridge
19 0 London Phoenix A 00:47:38 01:37:49
David Steele, Pete Richardson, Rob Peake, Jason Clarke
20 0 Thames Velo C 00:49:54 01:39:19
Gordon Brown, David Lambourne, Jeremy Monk Nick Silva
21 0 London Phoenix Women 00:51:23 01:41:56
Abigail Armstrong, Liz Rice, Kelly Campbell, Kerrie Noonan
22 0 GB.cycles.co.uk 01:20:22 02:02:22
Doug Rollins, Pete Wise, Steve Hehir, Colin Truelove
23 0 Composite Team 1 00:46:19 DNF
Terry Batsford, Lindsey Ruocco, Alan Clarke, Steve Watson
24 0 Norwood Paragon S Team 01:20:42 DNF
Chris Moores, Simon Richardson, Nigel Carpenter Kevin Davey

[Dr Frigo]

Wow thanks to Dave we got a top 10. I saw thanks to Dave cos I reckon he did about 65% of the work or more at the front, Toks and me sharing the rest of the time. Ajay pulled out after 20 minutes with what sounded like a cat in his throat.

Enjoyed that, first lap felt pretty good, well that was when I was at the front or Toks was leading, and the pace was manageable - and then Dave would take the lead and even in his wheel it'd be harder work than at the front (and it was windy!).

Second half of second lap I had my first few "ease up a bit please" moments, when I told Toks we only had about 20 minutes to go I think he was relieved too. I ran out of my two 750ml bottles but didn't even have time to ingest the gel like I was planning half-way. Last few km were the hardest as Dave increased the pace while I was getting slower.

Average speed 38.6km/h, my average HR 170. The winners would have done 42.5km/h.

Kudos to Stuart Spies part of the team that got third, he was racing at Beastway on Wednesday and got 2nd, as well as finishing 2nd overall in the series, and I think he was on a borrowed bike today.

[Andrew G]

Well done guys. Watching from the comfort of the grass verge it looked like a tough event. No shame in losing a man as at least half the teams were down a man when they came past us shortly after starting their 2nd lap.

Seeing the final times it's no surprise to see the top 4 having a few minutes on everyone as they had kept all 4 together and looked super smooth when they came past.

[Toks]

[quote]The first obstacle that we encountered on our trip was just after the really sharp turn out of Alfold. Here we came across two horse riders, as we approached, one of the horses got spooked and leared up across the road. We all came to a standstill and waited for the horse to calm down. Paul then crept through and the other horse started to get a bit lary, when that had calmed the rest of us rushed through and carried on. I reckon we lost about 1.5mins or so due to this incident.

[richv]

Sounds like an excellent day, well done everyone.

[Steve B]

Well done guys, A and B teams times excellent, made our C team time look like we really were out with our grandma's.
Great day all in all and thanks goes to the team leaders for the organisation, the guy's who came down to support us, Lisa and Jo for following in the 'Team Car' and to Chris for jumping in to replace Alan who could not ride following his crash at Herne Hill.

After changing and signing on, we got on the bikes and headed off for a warm up. This is a bit quick I thought, I'm not going to manage 35 miles like this, but after a bit everyone seemed to feel the same and we turned round and came back at a more leisurely pace, missing a turning and only getting to the start with a minute and half to go.
We set off and soon got into a rhythm which got us half way round the first lap when Gavin seemed to start suffering. Dropping off and pulling himself back to the group eventually took its toll and by the end of the lap he just couldn't make those last few metres.
We got the nod to go on without him, which meant I had to carry on to the end despite terrible stomach cramps (see seperate thread).
Chris did most of the work on the front (with energy to spare I guess), while myself and Ian did shorter stints, both of us really feeling it half way home. We managed to finish with a strong surge for the line. Well maybe not a strong one!
I was surprised how the tiredness slowly crept up on me, as I was more expecting it to hit hard early and just hang on for the remainder, but it seemed to gradually come on without noticing until half way back when I realised I was totally sh*gged.

It's very different riding as a team and I'm sure it bonds those team members together in some way as you've all experienced the same thing at the same time. Thanks Chris Ian and Gavin, good experience, look forward to doing it again.

Steve

[Dr Frigo]

[quote]Yeah Yeah whatever...your 'arses' were well and truly kicked!!!...What a load of old nonsense! Are you sure they weren't flying pigs rather than horses? ...

[siwickm]

Goodwood in a couple of weeks is good for me.

Cheers

Marek...

[quote]Lol. We need a 3rd Cat race now (on closed circuit devoid of horses, pigs and deers) to settle this little argument ... A hilly one would do

[Dr Frigo]

Yes most weekends taken till the ACC race so 24's good for me.

[siwickm]

Thats very sporting of you Toks, so you are going to lead me out for the sprint, there is a good chap.

Cheers

Marek...

[Gavin]

4 Up TT. Immense pain. Lasted one lap before I lost it completly and started seing donkeys on the side of the road.

Can't say it was fun but I certainly learned a lot.

[siwickm]

They were horses Gavin, not Donkeys. They got in your way as well then

Cheers

Marek...

[Toks]

[quote]Thats very sporting of you Toks, so you are going to lead me out for the sprint, there is a good chap.