Yesterday was time trial day, I've only ever ridden one time trial before which was last Thursday's Hemel 10 miler. The Hemel course is simple enough, you ride up a straight road on the way out, then down the same road on the way back. Nothing complicated especially as there are marshals at both roundabouts. It's a long slog uphill on the way out, which I like.
Yesterday though, yesterday was hard. The North Bucks TT is a really undulating course, but it's long undulations which I hate. I like the long grueling gradients that go on and on, ones I can settle into a rhythm on. This, was not one of those. My TT started bad and got worse.
It was 5:30 and I thought to myself, right 15 minutes and then you need to get ready to go. Half an hour later and I was scrambling around trying to get my bits together. Spare tube, tyre levers, etc. Quickly attach the clip on aeros. Go. I was supposed to be meeting James at the Three Locks, which is a pub en-route to the TT. It's only 6km outside of Leighton Buzzard but 10 minutes wasn't a lot of time to get over there. It turns out I was so desperate not to be late that I rode like the wind and pulled in early. So it was a leisurely ride over to McDonalds, where the makeshift car-boot headquarters were parked. I was bugged the whole way by a squeaky cassette, I'd forgotten to oil it after cleaning my bike. Anyway, I was here now, time to get down to business. Okay sign on and...oh...where's my money? Oh yeah, that's right, it's sitting at home on my desk, in a neat pile, with some selo-tape round it so it doesn't jingle in my jersey pocket. Thankfully Miles was there to save me, he's a great guy and lent me the money.
So I put all the mishaps behind me and began to get ready, music on, get motivated. I take the music with me on the time trial. You're not really supposed to but it gives me something to do. Well for 100 metres it does. Before it cuts out and I spend a good thirty second fiddling with the iPod trying to get it to play, those are thirty seconds I should have been riding for. I gave up eventually and got down to the cycling. I knew Tom was my two-minute-man and he's fast so I told myself that if he hadn't caught me by the halfway point, I was going well. It was a headwind out and mostly uphill coming back which meant it was hard - really slow on the uphills and not fast enough on the short downhills. I struggled to get my speed back up after cresting any kind of bump. About 3/4 of the way round Tom caught me. He was going fast so I decided to try and keep him within sight, and I did. I kept him within about 40 metres for a good while until the roundabout where I had to slow for a car. I couldn't have finished more than thirty seconds behind, which meant I wasn't more than 2:30 off Tom's time. I was happy with that.
As it turns out I set a PB, 24:50. Which is thirty seconds faster than my previous attempt. Mind you I hadn't pushed myself particularly hard on the Hemel course, and I'd ridden it on a full stomach. Interestingly, I also got a 3rd place overall on a Strava segment whilst racing to the meeting point with James...I've decided to be late more often.
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