.George, Steve Davies and myself were down to ride this today. Steve was riding off the back of his LEJOG ride with the miles fresh in his legs, George contacted me in the week to say he was going to be a DNS. He'd been feeling below par for a week so a wise decision as a 12hr if not 100% could set you back for months. Me, well with George a DNS if I could finish then I'd take the Club BAR Championship, and I was hoping to do a distance I thought I could do. Last year I had a real downer in the 4 hours of rain at the start and lost a bundle of time there so felt I'd under performed, so this was to be one final go.
I set a schedule for 225 miles which on a sliding speed scale had me starting at about 19.5mph-ish for the first 25. I started quite well, the pedals were turning smoothly and I was rolling along nicely at an average of 20mph
. I was conscious of not going too hard too early as it's a bit of a long slog but the legs felt good so just kept ticking along.The first section is horrible. I hate it with a passion and consider it the most dangerous road I've ever ridden on. I've raced on a variety of courses, locations, and commute in to Central London. All of these feel like a gentle spin round the corner compared to this A11/A14 section of road. Even early there was a reasonable amount of traffic and it thunders past at 70mph, at one point a lorry passed so close that the back draft from it threw me over the white line on to the hard shoulder, and this was on a standard road bike and normal wheels. I can see no sense in racing on this, particularly in a 12 hour, and it takes a lot to put me off a road.
Anyway I was going along at a reasonable pace taking extra care passing the alarmingly amount of spearpoint junctions. I knew that the course switched from the A11 to the A14 and then back at some point before the turn. I approached a turn off for the A11 which was like a split in the road, sort of like two straight ons. In TTs if there are no arrows or marshals then you go straight on. There was no sign of a marshal or an arrow so I stayed on the A14 assuming the A11 turn off I needed would be the next one and signed.
Wrong.
I carried on for what seemed like too long but apart from a few more spearpoints joining my road not a lot. There was no sign of any riders coming the other way though which there should have been and I had no-one in front and no-one had passed me. I checked my computer and it confirmed my worst fears as I'd gone too far to still have the turn ahead of me. Thoroughly pissed off I stopped and called my Dad who was on his way out to support me, and in between my volley of swearing confirmed I was a fair way off course
.I crossed the DC when I could and started back-tracking in an absolutely foul mood. I started off intending to try and get back on course as once off this sh1t road the lane circuits were nice, but after a few minutes I realised that with with the stop and phone calls by the time I'd have retraced and got back on course I'd have lost about 45 minutes
I said earlier that you need to be 100% to do a 12, well that's mentally as well as physically and mentally I was shot now as even if I got back on track okay I'd have lost so much distance (officially as far as the results). I stopped again to call Jon to try and catch him as early as possible before he'd got up the road after his morning TT to support me, and then rode back to where me first feed stop was intended to have been to meet my Dad and pack up the bike and come home.Okay as a rider it's my responsibility to know the course but I'm not familiar with these roads and can't remember all the details of a 12 hour course, I'd made sure I was okay with the transition sections between the circuits. I gather I was the only rider to go off course, maybe the other riders know the road better than me, maybe I was stupid, whatever the reason I think it was very odd not to have a direction arrow at least at the turn off junction, most TTs even have them at straight over roundabouts. I didn't have a problem with it last year in the rain and poor viability so think they must have had a marshal or arrow there, but it was the National Championship so maybe there was more signage/marshaling.
Wasted money, time, effort. Annoyed but sometimes sh1t happens, not a lot i can do about it now.
A big thank you to my helpers, even if not needed in the end, the effort and stress for them is very big.
I saw Steve out on the course and he looked to be flying along nicely. I hope you had a good ride and didn't suffer in the heat as you looked fit as a butcher's dog before at HQ
.
. You'll nail it in 2010 
