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| Assembled At Claygate! |
Waking up to strong winds and heavy rain my first thoughts were, 'why did I commit myself to going on the reliability trial'. I wasn't the only one with such thoughts as Chris woke up with a bit of a hangover having over indulged on a mixture of drinks the night before and Derek's text asking me if I was still going showed he was also thinking the same. I just hoped that the forecasters were right and that it was going to improve. Chris had given us very detailed instructions of where to meet ,so all of us assembled together on
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| Chris Doesn't Need A GPS To Lead The Route! |
time at the White Heart pub at Claygate.Taking part were myself, Chris P, Derek, Metin, Steve D, Malc and making an extremely rare appearance Nick Bridger. Nick is into iron man events which he manages to do with relatively little training. Having done little lately except short sunday rides (followed by full English breakfast!) he was up for a longer ride and so had decided to come with us. We set off at a gentle club pace but this was too slow for Steve D who soon dropped us and disappeared into the distance following the route on his gps. I was the only other one with the route on gps but Chris has such an incredible route recall that he led for much of the time only asking me once if it was straight on or turn right. The weather was holding up, the rain had gone and the wind had dropped from storm force to strong wind force. The route was mainly flat having only around 2,000 feet of climbing despite its length of over 60 miles. At forty miles there was one section that did have a couple of hills. Having made a few adjustments to the head tube spacers on my Giant Defy the day before I was feeling really comfortable on the bike having reached that perfect spot between comfort, handling and wind position, sofeeling better on the bike than I have for a long time I was able to get ahead of everyone and photograph a few action shots. Once everyone caught up, it soon became apparent that Derek was in quite a bad way. Rather than bring out his carbon bike he had brought out his lower geared but heavier alloy specialised bike and at the last minute had had to change the rear tyre to an armadillo that was ok for a turbo trainer but terrible for riding any sort of distance . The combination of firm aluminium frame and rigid tyre meant he was feeling every slight bump in the road and his back was suffering, it was only by slowing down to stretch every few minutes that he was able to keep going. Nick was also feeling it a bit, not having done any long rides for a while. We decided it would be best for Derek and Nick to take a short cut back to the headquarters while the rest of us completed the route. While I was digging out a paper copy of the route to give to Nick (useless because he couldn't read it without his glasses), Chris and the others had left, thinking I was there behind them.Despite feeling fit, I couldn't catch up with them but to be honest I was really enjoying riding along on my own for the last 23 miles just following the little black line on my Garmin. This last 23 miles was into a headwind almost all the way but I barely noticed as I kept plodding on, passing one suffering rider after another.About 6 miles from the end, on a slight rise, I spotted a rider up ahead dressed all in black standing by his bike.
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| Malcolm Riding Strongly As Ever! |
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| Nick's Been Tangoed! |
Thinking he may need some assistance I decided to pull over and see if he was OK and was surprised to see it was Steve D. Steve's chronic groin problem had flared up again and he had had to stop, there was noting that could be done and I had to leave him to limp back to headquarters on his own. Meanwhile Chris, Metin and Malc were making good time as Malcolm lead into the wind all the way back with Chris (also feeling good) just behind him and Metin (feeling tired) at the back of the peleton. I arrived back at the start ten minutes behind them with only eight minutes to spare to be declared reliable . Our enjoyment of the beer and peanuts in the pub was dampened slightly with our concern for Derek especially when we got some garbled voice messages due to the terrible network signal strength in the area. Fortunately we needed have worried because just as we were packing up our bikes in the car park Derek and Nick appeared, I don't think Derek wil ever ride on that armadillo tyre ever again, LOL. Thanks to Chris P for getting us all organised and enrolled in this wonderful event, this is one I look forward to doing again next year.
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