Nice tailwind out on the G10/57 on Sat morning. Was feeling good and pedalling hard. Have taken it easy for a couple of weeks after losing my pazzam a little. Headwind on way back but I was ready for it. Ha! Kept high cadence to avoid hitting brick wall when headwind and rise in road conspired against me. Good run through roundabouts and hurtled to finish line in 24.05. 25 sec short of my pb (set on the speedy Q10/19) but I think my 2nd fastest time ever and fastest for that course and good enough for 1st place. Keith came second, pipped by a handful of seconds by Christian Yates on a singlespeed. Can't remember their times. Can't remember seeing any other ACC riders either - apols if there were and I just wasn't paying attention. Start sheets and result-board chats are all blurring into each other by this point in the season.
On Sunday Keith and I ventured out to Kent as I loathe the G25/89 that was on offer in the London South District. Q25/10 is an interesting course. Start on a fairly flat but slight uphill with fairly indifferent road surface, then turn onto dual carriageway at r'bout. Good surface but all of a sudden it goes up, and up, and then appears to flatten off but doesn't. Couldn't even do 20mph. Rubbish. Awkward and lengthy turn involving tight corners, r'bouts, humpy bridge and a photographer...but then a nice return down the dual carriageway where I hit 40mph going down the hill and rocketed past some numpty who was free-wheeling. Keith says he didn't reach 40mph so either my speedo wasn't very accurate or my weight advantage (ahem!) kicked in. Either way it was more satisfying than crawling up the climb on the first leg.
Back to 1st r'bout near the start but instead of turning at r'bout had to do tight left hand then up nasty rough road then another sharp left to be faced suddenly with a steep bridge (10mph!) and another nasty left turn to rejoin dual carriageway. Repeat ascent of hill, long turn, fast return, nasty rough road, steep bridge (13mph this time as in correct gear) and final nasty left turn to sprint finish. Phew!
1.05.30 was my time...which was better than I'd expected but not exactly blistering. Thankfully Carole Gandy DNS so I got 1st place again. Whoo! Keith who was 10 min faster than me and 2 min faster than his nearest rivals also took top slot. Worth the drive we reckoned.
, but it seemed as though it would be a fair bit quicker with the start ramp and zero roundabouts.
- did a 22.32, not far off my current PB set last year on an ECCA course.