Kent CA Reliability Trial 26/10

All Ready To be Our Normal 'Unreliable' Selves 

A great turnout for this year's Kent CA reliability trial. As well as ten HSLCC members we were joined by Roy Beeley, Dave Dixon and Nick Bridger. There was general mirth when riders realised that we had put down a completion time of five hours, four hours would have been more like it! As usual Steve D was champing at the bit and we had to hold him back just long enough to get a group photo and get our entry cards signed. The entry cards showed six checkpoints so it looked like there would be plenty of little rest stops (in the end there were only four)

We all set off at quite a brisk pace with Steve D leading most of the time and were happily sweeping up other riders as we went. I was leading when we came up to a road junction at the top of a long hill. Seeing a car coming I pulled up to wait but Steve and the others went past me slipping through on the inside. I set off in pursuit but being a poor descender they were pulling further away from me. I was temporarily in a group of one.

When I did eventually catch the riders up, the group had fragmented into several small groups with the leading group being nowhere in sight. Eventually we came across Dave at the side of the road fixing a puncture. Everyone pulled over to assist but myself and Nigel must have been a Zen like state as we selfishly just carried on. perhaps we had the thought in our sub conciousness that we would catch up with the fast group?

There was one nasty bit where we had to cross the M25. As we waited for a gap in the fast traffic we caught a glimpse of Diego in the distance. It looked like we had done it and would soon be back  in the fold . It turned out that the reason we had caught them up at this point was because on the opposite side of the motorway was a control point but we were completely oblivious to this at the time and set off in pursuit of Diego (very unreliable). Climbing up a fairly steep hill we had to go to the aid of a cyclist whose pedal was wobbling about . It looked like the thread had gone in the crank arm, there was no other advice we could give him except to ride to the nearest train station before the thing fell off. Unfortunately we had lost so much time we knew it was going to be impossible to catch up with the  fast group but perhaps we could find another group to tag along with? Strangely we seemed to be in 'no man's land and for the next 25 miles the only groups we came across were women or mixed groups that were going too slow for us leaving us no choice but to overtake them all.

Meanwhile in the fast group, Steve D had 'blown up' and got dropped as did Malcolm C who then managed to get lost and had no choice but to hang around for some 15 minutes until a group of cyclists appeared that he could tag along with . This would mean that Malc C would arrive at HQ long after everyone else!

Myself and Nigel pressed on as a two man team taking turns to shield each other from the wind. . Nigel has been overworked and fighting an infection for the last six weeks and  wasn't his usual speedy self, so for once we were quite evenly matched. We had one hairy moment when a huge articulated lorry decided to overtake us down a steep hill, the driver misjudged  just how fast we were going and passed by on our side with a couple of feet to spare. I held my breathe as it went past concentrating on holding a straight line while hoping not to hit any potholes which would bounce me into one of its gigantic wheels.

Diego Picks Up A War-wound In The Last Couple of Miles!

Apart from the lorry the route had been impressively free of traffic, also there was only one substantial hill . The main problem on the ride was the kind of tarmac they seem to use in this part of Kent which was much rougher than what we are used to. So it was a relief when we found ourselves with only five miles to go. The familiar figure of Malc D was soon spotted outside a pub waving us down. Malc suggested we stop here and have a drink or two so that we could get back to HQ at the right time to be reliable, but as Nigel and myself had missed the third  checkpoint we decided to press on to the finish where we ended up nearly an hour ahead of time and about ten minutes behind the fast group.

So alas yet again we were all completely unreliable, LOL, but the main thing is
we enjoyed a well organised event on quiet country roads. See you here again next year?