I dont think I thought it through when I entered this event!
I came home yesterday from a great 10 Days in Majorca, riding in general, every other day completing 470 miles and over 26000 ft of climbing. It dawned on me, as much as I wanted too, that it would not be a good idea to ride Sa Colabra on Wednesday with the rest of the WVCC contingent (fortunately I did it earlier in the holiday so I didnt miss out completely), I decided I should use that day to taper for today’s race, I therefore rode a gentle ride with the intermediate Stuart Hall group, only very berifley going into Zone 3. The holiday was therefore going to make me or break me on this event!
So having left 23 degrees in Majorca, today forecast of 10 degrees and windy brought me back with a bump. I fettled my bike this morning, droping my stackers by 10mm, and my stem by 10mm in an attempt to become more aero.
We had 5 members on the start sheet, however Andy Newby and Chris Gilbertson DNS. Alistair was there when I arrived, we had a good chat and moaned about the conditions, whilst the head wind was in exactly the same direction as 2 weeks ago, a WNW wind giving a headwind from Chelford Island to Seven Sisters, it was significantly stronger, 2 weeks ago 11 MPH, today 16 MPH!
Al was off first at nr 25, then me at 42, I completed my BC warm up, then rode out to the start, once at Chelford Island, I soon felt the head wind, on completing the first 5 mile split, my power was up 11 watts on the previous ride but the same time. The second split was also up, this time by 5 watts, but down by 7 seconds, the next 3 splits were similar to the previous ride but today’s ride from Chelford Island, the second time round was really tough, echoed by other riders! I finished with another course PB by just 4 seconds, at 56:07 (26.73 MPH) and an average of 4 watts improvement on 2 weeks ago.
On arriving back at HQ, Alistair was pleased to get under the hour with 59:49 (25:07), a great improvement by over a minute faster than a couple of weeks ago, he also found the conditions tough.
Alan Shuttleworth, finished with 1:15:17 (89th), Alistair came 23rd, while I came 7th. The winder was Mark Turnbull from Torq Performance who won for the second year running with a scorching 53:28
I will be glad when Dave Fearon starts doing these again!!