we pootled nicely up to newdigate where marek showed us the rout. i was not feeling great at this point as i needed a poo
, but i sat down hard on the saddle and pushed on.
once round this rather hilly course we split into groups--> ray, matt, pual on the pearson and andrew were to go first with a 2 minute head start, followed by the rest of us.
to catch them we did a very fast through and off.....very fast.....
eventually we got site of them, george and i did a little switching around to take bring us up to them. once there i thought: 'great time for a break'...but it was not to be...marek and paul came past. i thought about staying with the group we caught but i decided to go with the others to push myself.
by the time i made my decision they paul marek and hal had a good 50m lead. into chasing mode i went although i was conviced i would not catch them. luckily matt had made the same mistake as me and was just to my right, this gave me a bit of omf! and i cained it to them.
absolutely exhausted we past the finish line, however we had to do another lap! paul and george did a lot of work at first , but there cam a point where no one wanted to lead. in the end i went for a bit and then hal did a long one.
then the sound of a drowning cow met our ears, it was george's battle cry for his incredible break away. he dissapeared from view pretty quickely and we put a lot of effort into catching him. at one point he was only about 15m ahead, unfortunatly marek who was leading us up to him had to drop back as his gears gave way.
the paul made a huge dig and got close to george but not close enough, so towards the end it was george 150m infront, then paul about 75 m infront followed by me matt and hal. we worked pretty well together doing a through and off to at least catch paul! by the last big hill before the finish we were so close !! hal was leading us up and he blew! NOOOO- I was hoping he could take us to paul.
i slowly went passed him and the gap between paul and I stayed the same, although he was miles infront still
. putting everything into it i slowly dropped hal and matt. in the end i think the oder went like this :george, paul, me, hal, matt, marek, andrew, ray and paul on the pearsons... i was very happy with third.
a nice ride back to box hill lead onto a hellish ride up it..i stayed with paul and hal to the first hair pin but then burnt out and went up my own pace. paul dropped hal on the second straight.. i slowely closed the gap between hal and me, onyl fo george to come passed me and catch him up. this then made them speed up a tad and the gap stayed the same the rest of the way up.
a very fast ride back to kingswood where i then went my own way past the golf club to get to chipstead as i was totally burnt out. as i pootled towards coulsdon i came up to marek who dropped his pump. then i turned off left under the bridge and hooooome !! wooo!
i did about 65 miles, but i dont know the avs speed as my speedo is broken. a great but NAKEREING ride today.
cheers for organising that marek.
stu
. When we set off for the others to catch we started quickly going through and off, with Matt doing slightly longer turns. I was already hurting on the more pronounced uphills but tried to make up for it by doing my tows on the flatter or drag sections.
)
