This year was dry, reasonably warm but very windy. I started the ride again with Noel and the first 2-3 miles were very easy - we sailed along at over 25mph until a right turn when we were slap back into a headwind. I took the lead from Noel and thought he was behind but looked back and he'd fallen quite a way back. I slowed for him and he just about caught me but I then pushed on and dropped him again (unintentionally). My bike was squeaking away a bit and I spotted that the pre-load bolt for the crank set was loose so I stopped to fix it, and Noel caught me again, although this time we were just at the bottom of the Burton Dasset climb. Nobly Noel said he was feeling rubbish and said it was OK to gp on without him. I didn't really want to but could see Noel was struggling so pushed on alone.
I could bore you with a long and detailed mile by mile account, but I won't. The ride for me was much better than last year. The temperature was OK and I even unzipped my jacket on a number of occasions. The wind however was very very strong. It seemed the most of the time it was a headwind and on a few occasions I was on the 34T inner ring on the straight. However when there was a tailwind it was awesome - cruising effortlessly at 20-25mph in a big gear is tremendous fun and very rewarding. I made very short stop for more water but otherwise rode non-stop. Sunrising was as hard as ever made more so by the surface, but after the top it was pretty much a tailwind all the way to the finish.
I completed in 3:14:11 this year (average speed 16mph over 51.7 miles) compared to 3:22:15 last year (average speed 14.5 over 48.9 miles). More importantly I actually enjoyed it this year!
Steve Jefferies and the team did a really good job, and made a lot of improvements to the event this year including chip timing. Well done Steve.
Here's a couple of photos that some people took and uploaded to Flickr.
About 1/2 way up Edge Hill - just before the Right turn at the junction
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| At the top of Sunrising Hill |
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