2015-11-13 – World 24hr TT Championships, Borrego Springs

DNF @ ~8hrs/180mi

It seems each time I travel to the US to race the World 24hr TT Champs I come back with a different illness. This time I managed to avoid DVT but seem to have had some kind of asthma attack.

Shortish version of the race report is: it got very cold at night (I saw 3degC, someone else said -2degC) and I was only wearing a skinsuit in order to be competitive against Baloh. Around the 7hr point, I suffered some kind of asthma thing – wheezing, coughing, short of breathe – and if you can’t breathe you can’t ride. I couldn’t continue so dived into the car, cranked up the heating and put ALL my clothes on until my breathing got less raspy and I could take in a full lungful. I went back out and half a lap in, I couldn’t breathe properly again – even being covered in layers of clothes. That was it, my race was done. Back into the car and wheezed until I fell asleep. There was an idea of continuing at 10am when it would be much warmer but there were three guys still riding very strong and it seemed like a waste of time to start riding again for 11-12hrs just to get, say, 5th place. I was here to win, not fill minor places. So I officially quit the race, got some breakfast, packed up the bike and watched the remainder of the race.

We then had a lovely week in California driving from San Diego up to Santa Barbara then San Luis-Obispo via Solvang and a wine route Foxen Canyon road,  beautiful Big Sur and then flew out of San Francisco.

Shit race, great holiday. I’ve since been tested by my GP and have a poorer lung flow rate than my ‘proper’ asthmatic friend! Now I’ve been told I have to carry a little blue inhaler on all my rides and have to maintain a prescription for a preventer inhaler. Maybe all that crappy London air has finally started to kill me? Still haven’t got the tests back for my DVT since they lost the first lot! Bloody hell, falling apart…

Oh, as expected, Marko Baloh won the race but only managed just over 500 miles, where I was expecting a 520-530 mile ride, especially given there was almost no wind, compared to the year before when you could barely hang onto the bike! Maybe he also suffered from the cold? Meurig did well this year, adding another 10mi to his distance.