So, that's why I found myself with two trips north of the river into Essex this weekend to ride a Spoco 25 on Saturday afternoon and a 50 on Sunday morning.
Colchester Rovers CC 25 on Saturday on the E7/25B course way out east. I'd never ridden this course before, or even been anywhere near it, so I arrived with plenty of time in hand for a recce around it in the car. Two laps of mostly unclassified lanes and a few short bits of main(ish) roads, fairly flat but some dodgy surfaces. 51 riders in the field, and I was off number 41, which meant as I started some people had already gone past the start after their first lap. I started catching people straight away, and spent the whole first lap catching people, some on their second lap and some on their first. Second lap it seemed everyone had been abducted by aliens, as I hardly saw a soul until shortly before the finish. Finished in 1:00:33, which was a bit frustrating as going under the hour on a sporting course would have been a first for me. Anyway, that was good enough for 9th place and 112 spoco points, an improvement of 9 over my 3rd counting result in the group 2 events. So far so good.
Eagle RC 50 on Sunday on the E1/50 course starting at Ugley (no Essex girl jokes please) and heading up to Newmarket. I hadn't ridden this course before either, but had covered most of the ground before in various other events so it was reasonably familiar. This was the big decider; would Neil get a load of points and take the lead from me? All I could do was do the best ride I could, and pick up points myself. Last man off today, so at least I would have nobody catching me. A fairly misty and humid morning, it felt chilly when I was warming up, but once I got going I was sweating loads. Had to take my shades off at about 20 miles and stuff them down my skinsuit, as the sweat on the lenses was obscuring my vision. A strangely familiar story, I caught a lot of people in the first half, then nobody for ages until just before the finish. At about 45 miles I passed Neil Marrin who was at the side of the road fixing a punture, at least he wouldn't be picking up too many points today. Finished in 2:04:52, not quite what I was hoping for, but enough for 12th, 109 points, an improvement of 5. But what made my day was the letters DNF by Neil Hornett's name on the result board.
So, the outcome (I think) is that barring some mathematically possible but very improbable results in the last two events, I'll be taking away a gold in the handicap competition.
