4 up time trial....addiscombe swats mosquitos...

[Stu Merckx Man]

paul, george, sylv and me set off for the time trial.

we didnt have an entry but managed to get on and start first.

our plan was that the person on front would do a spell then peel off to the right. this worked really good and we motered it along.

infact we must have been going so fast that on 3 or 3 of the turnings of the first lap the marshals wernt ready for us!! we went the wrong way slightly at one point which cost us some time.

george and paul were doing the longest pulls on the front for the first lap. me and sylv hadnt really got into it properly...yet

we had finished our first lap and and hadnt been passed by anyone so we were doing well.
about 1/3 of the way into lap 2 we hit some traffic up a hill and lost paul for a bit. after a while he managed to get onto us but the effort had tired him out. after doing a good pull on the front he dropped off the back.
now it was down to sylv george and i.

we got into a good pattern. not always peeling off to the right, but also just coming to the front when we felt good. this worked well with just 3 of us.

in the last half of the second laps (last 1/4 of the tt), me and sylv were doing lots more work. george had tired himself out from his earlier efforts, when he was pretty much the engine of the A train.

we had a nice little sprint up to the finish and there was still no sight of the people behind.

when we got to the HQ we had the fastest 1st lap by a long way. up to as much as 10 minutes of other teams....we are not sure how we did overall as they mucked up a bit on the timings, and after waiting 2 hours for them to sort it out we decided to go.

as for the competition between addiscombe and the mossies...what competition??

we smashed them by nearly 15 minutes. but apparently they had a 4minute penulty, so porbably nearer 10 minutes

well done sylv, george and paul, it was a good ride, hopfully we did well....

stu

[George]

Good fun today even with the naff weather conditions.

After we signed on we had to get our skates on because we were away first and had to get 20 mins up to the start in just 10 minutes but we made it ok.

We really rode well together as a team, the front man doing about a min or just less then peeling off to the right, we had this off to a tee.

Flying down the hill to a fork in the road I was on the front and seeing the marshals 20-yards up the right fork I thought that must be the way.

Then they shouted no up there so we all had to slam on the brakes and do a sharpish U turn

Then on the next lap we really hit a big traffic jam, so had to do some crazy commuting type riding to keep going:o We could tell Paul doesn't commute much in London

Later on down to 3 of us and Stu and Sylv were getting so much stronger, at one point I was worried they might drop me

back at the HQ and up on the leaderboard we were in pole position and it didn't look like anyone was gonna budge us either.

We waited around a while but they couldn't sort out all the times

We certainly showed a few people with our fast time that Addiscombe CC meant business.

[Marek]

Yep, fair play you pretty much blasted us into oblivion. We arrived quite late for the ride as Paul and Toks had managed to get a slow train to Horsham where I picked them up. We got changed and ready to go and then headed over to the start line as quick as we could.

We missed our start time and they set us off late, later we were to find that they penalised us for that which I felt was a bit out of order in the spirit of things but hey ho, these TT lot are a funny bunch.

As we got going it was evident that Toks was not feeling too good to start with. I told him to dig in and to remember the 3 minute rule, basically the first 3 minutes are painful and then it gets easier, well kind of. Max was going well, Paul was going ok and I was a bit on and off. Felt fine for the first lap and we caught up with Norwood Paragon C team who were on their second lap. Simon H was in with them and as we came past this seemed to spur them on, and we were yo yoing the lead now.

Although at one point a 3 man team from London Dynamo with aero everything came swooshing past us, they looked quick.

Toks had a few issues coming through in the first part of the ride, but once he had warmed up his old bones he started to feel better and was taking his turns. We were going along quite well, a couple of times though we nearly lost it. Max told me to come through fast at one point, he was trying to gee us up. I went through and put my foot down, only to be greeted with an almost 90 degree right hander, thankfully we all managed to get around ok, but I nearly went head on into the bushes.

Into the second lap and this is where we lost a lot of time. Toks punctured and that was the last we saw of him.

Then we were down to 3 for the second lap. It was now getting tough and I think we had gone out too fast as I was feeling the heat a bit and had to take a couple of long breaks. Paul and Max were still going quite well. Then we hit the hills in Alfold and I just could not get up it, I mean they basically had to stop at the top to wait for me. When I arrived I felt guilty so blasted the downhill section and the flat bit and then we got back into the groove. Then I started to feel quite a lot better and we settled into a good rhythm.

Now Paul started to feel the heat and he was pretty cooked so started missing turns. Max and I did a few longer turns and Paul would come through when he could. Up towards the last straight Paul was feeling it and we shouted at him to motivate him to get going.

Overall not too pleased with the time, but I reckon we had worse weather conditions than the ACC team, need to fit an excuse in somewhere.

Well done though, that was an impressive time.

Cheers

Marek....

[Marek]

I was a bit miffed about the time and have just checked my clock. We actually did 1.27.07. I started my clock 10 secs before we started and also about 3 or 4 seconds after we stopped. So I reckon we did just under 1.27.

I suspected something was up as when I looked at last years results we were much quicker than 1.40 something which is the time that I think they were going to give us.

I think the people doing the times were all over the place today. Never mind.

Cheers

Marek...

p.s. You still beat us though.

[quote]had to get 20 mins up to the start in just 10 minutes but we made it ok.

[Stu Merckx Man]

it was chucking it down andrew!

[Sylv]

That was good! (well apart from the marshalling and timing).

Not much of a warmup no, didn't seem to matter for George who set us off like a rocket, so much so that when we hit the first hills I thought I was going to get dropped. I had this weird feeling that was akin to being trapped underwater - my glasses had steamed up and one eye was completely blind, I was huffin and puffin out of air and desperate to stay on the person in front's wheel, the braking on my carbon rims was very poor so I felt out of control, and of course I was wet through.

I knew we couldn't keep going for over an hour at that frantic pace though and sure enough we got into a nice steady rythm. By then I had warmed up and started feeling ok again, still when George was coming past after I'd done a turn at the front I'd always have to be very careful not to lose more than a few inches on the last man's wheel.

We kept hammering and I could hardly find a place to grab my bottle and get a drink. I had an energy gel at the ready stuck onto the bottle but quickly realised I was never going to have the liberty to ingest it.

On the second lap we really got into a nice flow, I was feeling stronger and only a couple times struggled to stay on the wheel. Towards the very end Stu wouldn't let George work for more than a few seconds which was quite funny. I think we should've been taking shorter turns towards the end, but still we were pretty organised for people who never do that kind of stuff. It was good training for a future 4-man breakaway in a 2nd cat race soon

We left as they were trying to sort out the timings, we had just under 1"26 and I think were 4th out of 28 behind two Paragon and a London Dynamo team, I heard of a 1"19 and 1"23. Think we lost maybe just over a minute between the wrong turn and the faffing when we weren't too sure whether to wait for Paul or not (sorry Paul).

I had 61km which included the ride back to HQ, and 39.5km/h average for the race.

Marek, 1"27 is a pretty good time all things considered.

[Snoop Doug]

Good effort both teams, well done ACC, bad luck Skeeters

The timing thang is a pain but hey - it's happened to me before - you learn yer lesson pdq.

Andrew - I'm willing to make this something to aim at for next year, if I can step up to the ranks of team inferior that is! Way to go yet.

Cheers - Snoop

[George]

All 2nd cats watch out

Stu on his new carbon bike is seriously strong

It's true towards the end of the TT he really wouldn't let me stay on the front

[Stu Merckx Man]

[quote]It's true towards the end of the TT he really wouldn't let me stay on the front

[Andrew G]

Provisional Results:
Pos. No Club Lap 1 Time
1 33-36 London Dynamo B 39:00 1:17:53
2 65-68 Norwood Paragon A 39:04 1:18:41
3 77-80 Wildside RT 40:02 1:19:14
4 85-88 VC Meudon 39:37 1:20:02
5 97-100 De Ver/Neovite RT 40:30 1:21:18
6 61-64 London Dynamo A 40:11 1:21:23
7 93-96 G S Stella 40:17 1:21:58
8 45-48 Norwood Paragon B 41:16 1:22:03
9 89-92 In Gear Dev. Squad 40:25 1:24:12
10 1-4 Addiscombe C C 42:35 1:25:39
11 41-44 Meudon/Southdown 41:42 1:26:05
12 21-24 Norwood Paragon C 43:53 1:27:06
13 53-56 Kingston Wheelers A 43:41 1:30:02
14 69-72 Mosquito Bikes RT 46:16 1:30:42 includes 4.00 late start

[Marek]

You should get a point for 10th. Am annoyed about the 4 min penalty. By my calculations us mossies did a super quick second lap when you take off the penalty, a bit weird.

Cheers

Marek...

[Toks]

[quote="Marek"]Toks had a few issues coming through in the first part of the ride, but once he had warmed up his old bones he started to feel better and was taking his turns.

[Paul H]

Blimey weve gone from 1st to 10th. We probably lost a minute due to traffic and lack of marshalling.

That has to be the worst marshalled event this year.

[Tamar]

Nice work boys. Not bad at all for a bunch of non-testers.