VTTA Notts 25m TT

My first crack at the club trike record although officially it was just a warm up event for next weeks Lincoln Wheelers Trike event on the C25/22. I was really looking forward to riding this course as I had always wondered what the A46 courses would roll like.

Signing on was at Farndon Village Hall, and the event was being run by Melton Olympic CC. The weather had been forecast 16mph winds and it certainly felt like it as I was getting the trike out of the back of the car. Clouds were also gathering, but the forecast had said in the morning that we would miss any of the wet stuff.

No real warm up for me, as I was chatting to a club mate and realised that I needed to get to the start pronto. As I was riding to the start it started to rain though and as I was waiting in the queue to set off it became torrential - just my pissing luck !

Soaked through, I started the ride, and I don't want to moan too much, but started at the bottom of a short climb into a wet headwind - it's safe to say that at that point I was not enjoying myself. All too soon I had swung a left over the flyover and gingerly made my way down and round and onto the dual carriageway - back into that headwind.  Initially I thought about canning the ride as the spray was ridiculous, but things calmed down within a minute or so, and I settled down and passing traffic offered short bouts of respite into the wind.

The road cambered a little in parts, but also dried out quickly. The Bingham climb was a nasty piece of work and I could see my Garmin showing 11mph at one point - I was just praying to the cycling gods to get me to the turn as quickly as possible.

The turn did come at c.11 miles with my average speed in tatters at 19.5mph ! as soon as I turned North though I got the benefit of that 16mph wind and woooooosh - I was back in the room !

Glorious 12 miles of racing, the speed never dipped below 26mph and I was having the time of my life ! The average was going up and up and up and by the time I reached the roundabout at Newark, I had recovered the average to 23.3mph - bang on Wheelers record pace. Then.....

I turned left onto Farndon Road, into that headwind, and that killed it stone dead. Pleasing ride at 1.05.28 with happy memories, but my first record attempt fell short by exactly one minute.