ESCA Reliability Trial - The 3 hour group

JV, David Morris and myself arrived at the HQ with plenty of time to spare as David was doing the 3 and a 1/2 hour ride. John and I thought we'd have plenty of time for a coffee while we waited for our time slot.
It turned out there wasn't any coffee laid on, it wouldn't be the first time we'd be disappointed today.
So we bid farewell to the chaps on first groups and got ourselves ready.

Our group consisted of JV, Malcolm, Nigel, Tom, dan, Ben and myself.

I'd made sure we'd be well prepared to try and be reliable. Three of us had the route on Garmins while I kept tabs on our average speed (we were aiming for 17.6mph) and the time. 
What could possibly go wrong?
Anyway, we set off at 9.35 and set a fairly brisk pace.
Within 2 miles and the first junction there was a little confusion and a u-turn.
This was soon repeated at the next major junction as we went wrong again.
There was such confusion at one point that Nigel was convinced that we were doing the course backwards which would have been fun, especially doing 'The Wall' the easy way.
So we pressed on at a good pace along some really nice rolling roads and terrain averaging up in the 19's at this point, so well on schedule.
Unfortunately this wouldn't last as Malcolm then had our one and only puncture of the day. 

We then pressed on to the first check point and up into Ashdown forest.

The hammer was firmly put down along the winding descents into the forest trying make up some lost time and for the climb that waited.
We all spent a lot of the ride scaring Dan and Ben with horror stories of 'The Wall' but they coped brilliantly.
With 25 miles and time ticking we regained our breath and quickly pushed onwards.
At this point we were averaging 17.3mph, so a little down on our target even with 10 minute cushion.
We were flying along at this point with Malc, JV and Nigel and myself pulling us along, but we'd be frustrated further with more wrong turns and overshot junctions.
The terrain was rolling along with some steady climbs which wasn't helping our progress.
We checked in at the next control point with 12 to go and raced on.
At this point the ride then become more of a TT with the speeds up in the mid 20's much of the time.
After a couple more errors and the final control point it became clear that we would all have to morph into Bradley Wiggins clones to get back in time, but we pressed on never the less.
As we approached the finish line and a cheeky sprint finish (cheers tom) we made it back in 3:20, 20 minutes late and massively unreliable.

The route was 53 miles and I had done over 55 miles, so 2 miles of cock-ups.
But it was a great effort from all the lads.
If anything was unreliable it was GPS and Garmins, not us.

Over and out
Lee S