4:19:36 (PB)
Mal and I drove to Wales on Saturday morning and stayed overnight at Penygawse Tea Rooms. The guy that runs it trains baristas and the tea and coffee from the downstairs cafe were free for guests and lovely – win! I rode some of the A40 course and then cleaned up and we explored the small town of Llandovery in the afternoon. Scherrit was in Wales watching the Masters track championships in Newport and, being awesome, volunteered his Sunday to drive up to us and help Mal with support. The three of us had dinner at the Castle Hotel before an getting early night. Well, it would have been an early night if I didn’t get up to watch the Tour de France Prologue replay late that night.
Unlike the rained-off Cambridge 100, the WCA 100 started at a more reasonable 8am, with my start time around 9.30am. This gave the three of us time to have breakfast at Penygawse. I elected against a Full English (sorry, Full Welsh?) and stuck with coffee and jam toast. It was painful to watch the others eat such nice looking fry-ups. We drove to the HQ (once I took the correct turn off!) and signed on. The rear wheel was being its usual temperamental self but we sorted it and I rode a couple of miles south to the start. No time for a quick leak, I was almost ready to start. Held, 10, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Go!
I’m out of the saddle but not really putting in much power (self control baby, self control!) when it all goes a bit grind grind wurr wurr slow stop.. WTF?!?! I jump off the bike and notice the frickin’ wheel has pulled over again and rubbed on the chainstay. Straighten it all up, lock down the Zipp skewer and roll off again cursing, trying to tell if the thing is actually rolling properly. It is, so I wave off the offer of help from Scherrit after the short southerly turn-around section. Can’t I have a 100 that goes smoothly? Is it too much to ask?!
Now I’m all locked into proper long distance TT mode. I’m eating (or should it be drinking?) a gel every half an hour along with taking on a little bit of SIS Go. It’s not very warm so I’m not drinking much and eating the gel every 30 min gives me something else to do/focus on. The course is pretty good fun as it’s winding, damp and a bit lumpy so it’s not flat, busy drag strip. I’m busting for a leak so on one of the descents look around, notice it’s clear and go for it. I’m sure you don’t hear about this much but if you have to go you have to go and stopping would lose a minute so it’s not an option in a timed event. Of course, as soon as I’m done I’m passed by another rider.. haha whoops.
At the top turn-around and SLAM – the wind from the South-West is horrendous. It’s time to get low on the bars and just keep tapping it out, knowing I’ve got a LONG way to go before I get to turn around for a tailwind. To be fair the rolling nature of the course as well as some of the tree-lined sections means you can get a bit of respite from the wind in places. On one particular descent I benefited(?) from a lot of respite, getting stuck behind a massive tractor until it did me a favour and pulled into a layby (thanks!) so I could get by and carry on.
I knew I was going to get a tailwind for the last few miles so I was upping my power output now to get the windy section done as quickly as possible. I’d get within 50m of a rider and then the road would angle up and he would pull out 200m on me. This repeated for some time, around the bottom right-hander. Eventually, we turned around at the bottom of the course and it was a different story. I spoke to him after the race and I think he said he finally blew up. On the other hand I knew there wasn’t much to go and still had heaps left in the tank. Time to go for it. I reeled in most of the riders that had passed me earlier on (I wasn’t keeping too much of an eye on riders as I tend to ride my own race but some numbers, kit or bikes you can remember). I was out of water as I’d elected not to pick up from Mal earlier on and she handed me up a smaller bottle instead of a large one but I had some SIS gels which are much more liquid than Powergels so that helped. Burying myself now with only a few short miles to go I hit the 161k mark… no bloody finish line! I’m almost sprinting now and have 163k showing on my computer. What the hell?! I shut it down and grovel on for another couple of kilometres before finally spotting the finish line and up the pace again. Idiot! I was working off the 404 Powertap which was calibrated for my hill climb wheels not my massive 27mm 24hr tyres! It wasn’t until after the finish line that I noticed the Garmin said 161k! Haha Done. 4:19:something.
Anyway it was over and I rolled back to the HQ. Cleaned myself up, had some food and a chat with some of the other riders and then headed back to the tea rooms for a meal and coffee before leaving Wales. Mal was driving and she can only use A roads so it was going to take us about 5 hours to get home. If I had’ve stayed I might’ve received my ‘Greatest Improvement’ plaque! I emailed Robin, the organiser to thank him for letting me enter the event quite late and he said I’d won it. 🙂
Big hugs to Mal, big thanks to Scherrit and Robin Field the organiser and also huge nod to the helpers and everyone who assisted or rode the event. I had a great weekend.
Nice one bruvva! Dats some goood time trialin’ !