Round & round & round the lake

Wednesday was the biggest Bristol South CC TT at Chew Valley Lake, this time a 3 lap race accumulating to a 25 mile time trial. It was the first time me & Ed had done one of these, and we were joined by good friends Mark & Kieran in the experience.

Mark ended up with the lucky 13 number on his back for the not so flat course, over the 25 mile length there was a total of 800ft of climbing, this is a fair bit for a time trial & the hills are testing on a fixed gear, that’s for sure.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it round the 3 laps in all honesty, so I set off at a nothing more than average pace, hoping to reserve some of my energy usually used in a 1 lap race for the entirety of the 3 laps. I took a bottle of drink out with me as an hour’s riding with no fluids is my worst nightmare. I discarded the bottle into a verge at the start of the 3rd lap & put in 100% effort for the final lap.

The first 2 laps felt hard but they faded to a distant memory as I started the third. I was feeling the pain in my legs, a severe pain that made me want to scream, but I gave it everything I had for the final few miles, slowly pushing up my average speed up, and came away with a respectable time of 1:09:25, my goal was 1:09 so I wasn’t too far off this. The pain when I got of my bike was like nothing I’ve experienced before.

Ed put in another sterling effort & came home with an excellent time of 1:04:02 so not too far off that hour mark, I’m sure he’ll hit that soon enough on the right course, big things on a fixed gear. He was smiling after this performance despite having a few run-ins with cars throughout his race.

Mark & Kieran turned up & put in great times too, big respect to these guys who are fully into the road race & crit scene so it’s great to see them taking part in time trials when they get the time!