9/2 VTTA Reliability Trial

Another Chance To be Reliable!

When I woke up the weather didn't look too promising as the wind was howling and occasional heavy showers were lashing against the windows. Turning on the pc to check the weather forecast I could see that they were all claiming that the wind would die down and it would be mainly dry with some sunshine. After reassuring Derek about the forecast I loaded up the mpv , the rain had stopped but it was still pretty windy. Arriving at Bethersden HQ we all assembled with a good turn out nine riders. This included Mick and Malcolm C on their first ever reliability trial. Once the obligatory photo was taken , Chris P led us off at a surprisingly fast pace. Has Chris being doing secret training, I asked myself? I didn't think I could keep up this pace for 50 miles and was even less sure that Derek or Nick would be able to.Fortunately after ten miles or so Chris started to slow down while I was speeding up and getting into the 'zone'. This ride was so different to the recent audax that many of us did. Mostly flat B or C roads in decent condition and some very welcome sunshine, this was going to be an easy ride.We were following the gpx of the route but one section

Chris P Sets A fast Initial Pace!

of about 4 miles was closed off and so we had to follow a diversion onto a much rougher lane with a few ups and downs. One down section was badly weathered with so much washed up road gravel that there were heaps of it piled up in the middle and spreading out to the side. Much to Steve D's annoyance I had to break to scrub off some speed before trying to hit it in a perfect straight line, so as to avoid skidding and falling off r . By this point we had split into two groups with Chris, Derek and Nick in the slower group and the rest of us in the lead group. From here on the ride was back to easy B roads and we were making a good average speed of over 16 mph. We had signed on to do the ride in three and a half hours but this was looking wildly pessimistic. We even had time for a ten minute breather at Appledore which caused some confusion to other riders who kept slowly down to ask if this was a check point. Somehow the wind was never head on, it was either to the side or at our backs, so we arrived back at base in under three hours, more than half an hour early. Oh well unreliable
again!