The clean drivetrain did him no harm at all. (If he'd used his own bike he'd have struggled to turn the pedals judging by the amount of crap clogging up the chain and jockey wheels.)
Arrived at the start to a bit more light hearted baiting from Huw who started behind us, but he who laughs last...
My dad and I started off having to dodge a car which came past as we were being pushed off, and headed off up the A road. The start of this sporting 15.4 mile course will be familiar to any who've ridden the club TTs as the first 4.9 miles is up the undulating dual carriageway to the 10 turn. Huw and pacer caught us after about 3.5 miles, but we kept them in sight up to 4 miles where Huw climbed off his bike and gave it a few inquisitive looks. Struggling to keep a straight face we continued, as had his pacer who didn't realise he'd left Huw by the side of the road.
At the 10 turn we took the 2nd exit on to what was to become a long drag with steeper sections at various points. This was the part my dad had been dreading most as he suffers on the hills/drags these days, having said that he was riding a blinder keeping up on the rough schedule I'd been thinking of. On this sort of "sporting" terrain I knew he'd normally average about 14.5 - 15s on his own so had set a target average of 17s sitting on my wheel, and we were at about 18.5 - 19 av. at this point. We were aware of the danger of starting too quick but Green Senior was doing fine and we'd now be able to ride the tough drag section easier to avoid over cooking it.
Kept a steady more tempo pace up the drag, I was now realising that I was suffering from a bit of verbal diarrhoea but not being told to shut up figured my calls / encouragement was either helping or simply being ignored.
Sharp left which took us on to a nice section, net downhill with a few kick ups. Familiar to everyone as the final stages of the CR (Newdigate to Rusper) in reverse. Kept good speed and we were still on 18.4av
. Long flat section here with a nasty headwind which had me suffering now and my dad enjoying a breezefree armchair as I pushed hard to make the most of the flat.
Left at Newdigate to take us back towards Holmwood and we were now in to the final 5 or 6 miles. My dad was starting to suffer a touch by now but was continuing to push, giving it everything he had. Old testers don't forget how to hurt themselves.
I was starting to lie by now calling back the remaining distance with my encouragement, but knocking off about half a mile. In theory this should have been a cunning pschological trick, but was kyboshed by my dad having kept his computer on distance. He told me at the end that every time I called a distance he just swore "lying sod" under his breath.
Small kick up to last left turn, dad really suffering now but knew we were nearly there. Thanks to Amy for the shout and support which helped us up that last bit. Crossed the line with a much quicker time than I'd expected with my veteran father crossing the line in 51 mins 30. Working this out it comes to 18.01 average speed for the 15.4 undulating miles. A cracking effort, the .01 is important as it allows him to say "in excess of 18mph average".
I am very proud and hope to be able to do the same when I'm 70. Top marks to Jim as well who did 55mins, at 80! An inspiration to us relative whipper-snappers.
Cheers,
Andrew (clearly still suffering from the verbal diarrhoea).
