Monthly Archives: August 2013
2013 RTTC National Championship 12 Hour – ECCA 12hr
271.81 miles
7th place and agonisingly close to Meurig James’ Willesden CC 12-Hour club record of 272.716 miles. It was a distance PB for me and a power PB – in simple terms, if it wasn’t such a windy day I’m sure I’d have got the record. It was more complicated than that though. The ECCA 12 was only 3 weeks after my 518 mile 24-Hour win. This meant most of the time was spent just recovering from the 24, rather than adding any speed work or any training for that matter before the 12hr. I was riding and physically I was ‘ok’ but not good. Mentally, I was pretty poor. The focus wasn’t anything like I had for the 24 (and it wasn’t helped seeing a downed rider being attended by ambulances and police – I hope he recovers fast and fully!). Within hours I was in pain on the TT bike – not show-stopping but annoying pain which takes you away from the task at hand. I was annoyed with the traffic, the wind. When I was in a good mood I wasn’t riding fast enough. Unfortunately I was in front of or on record pace for the whole bloody ride! This meant I HAD to keep going because there was always a chance I’d hang on and claim it. Alas, no. It will have to wait until next year because I can’t face another 12hr this season. I wish the 12s were before the 24hr! I’ve been so long posting anything about this because I was pretty bummed about the whole thing – less than a mile! Argh! Nik Bowdler won on some crazy contraption, err, bike. He was ~7mi off last year’s distance, narrowly beating Steve Berry with his 293.57 mile ride.
TTF – RTTC National Championship 12 Hour
a3crg 50mi TT – P885/50
1:53:38
I’ve only done three 50s this year. One was the day after a 100, so pretty slow (2:03) and the other was cut short with a p_nct_re. The season is running out so this was pretty much my last chance to nail a PB and bump my BBAR rank a bit. A few mistakes were made but thankfully still managed to improve my 50, taking over 3 minutes off last year’s best time (1:56:55). It was a power PB for the distance too so it’s not just aero gains from the new bike. I had issues with circulation in my left leg again which slowed me down – I need to see a doctor for an ankle brachial index test I reckon. The course was very well marshalled but I stupidly missed a couple of signs and took the wrong options. Those cost me time from the detours as well as the anger-initiated power spike? that followed them. The course also suited a bigger gear range and I was still runnnig smaller chainrings from the 24hr. I was in my biggest gear down a lot of the hills and could’ve done with some more teeth up front. Mal didn’t have any bottles to hand up during this so I kept her entertained by pretending I was a Slayer front-man or something. A good result. Pretty happy with that and didn’t have to spend a whole day riding 🙂
The Jersey Pocket – A Hard Day & Night
Photo by Paul Cooper – www.paulfranciscooper.co.uk
“Imagine, if you will, climbing onto your bike early on a summery Saturday afternoon and going for a 60 minute solo ride at a pacy 21.5 mph. Sounds good, nice even.. Now imagine staying on your bike, needing to maintain that speed, for another 23 hours straight. Doesn?t sound so good anymore,does it?“
Read the full Jersey Pocket interview with your’s truly right here
