Sunday 31 May 2009 at 12:00 pm
More mid pack obscurity in the
results, and another six seconds off my 'line 2' time. The wind was in the wrong direction, making the descent of the ski slope fast (>33mph average to the bottom), the river crossing to Bisham quite quick (30mph average to the roundabout) and even the climb to the Thicket pretty brisk (27mph average to this point).
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Friday 29 May 2009 at 12:55 am
The trouble with time trialling is that the goal posts keep getting moved. Only a fortnight ago, any kind of 25mph ride would have been cause for celebration; tonight's was a slight disappointment in the light of last week's ride. A few better people turned up, bouncing me out of the
top ten. The UltraTorque Pista project was brought into play, which sorted out the slght crank creak which had been plaguing the old chainset, but the DID NJS chain is not as whisper quiet as hoped, something of which I had been forewarned by Izumi fans. On the plus side, the 25mm steel UltraTorque axle is noticably stiffer in torsion than the old
5/
8" Titanium one, yielding an agreeably solid feeling to the pedals.
Saturday 23 May 2009 at 10:25 pm
This is how God (Tullio Campagnolo) and nature intended the Mirage chainset to look, but He reckoned without my desire to get a cheap external bearing chainset with 175mm cranks for my time trial bike.
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Thursday 21 May 2009 at 11:21 pm
A week's worth of training, conditions which possibly favoured my ride more than last week and above all a more focused ride (i.e. not coasting on the easy bits) yielded a big improvement of over half a minute and into the
top ten. That does mean I wasted a lot of time on Sunday afternoon updating my entry form templates, but it's a small price to pay.
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Sunday 17 May 2009 at 1:36 pm
As you can see from a comparison of the elevation and HR curves, the slight disadvantage of riding fixed on the H25/2 ski slope course is that you can't start trying until the bottom of the hill. A moderate southerly wind today made for a more comfortable descent than usual, with the average speed reading never quite making it to 30mph before the hill ran out and the readout began its inevitable decline. Conditions on the Bath Road section of the course were pretty neutral, and I just about hung on to 24mph by the time I got back to the Thicket roundabout (20m in a few seconds short of 50min). Turning North onto the A404, it was obvious why the outbound section had felt so dead, with the last 5 miles covered in a smidge over 11min. On a pretty ordinary day, I improved 6s over the time I did on a float day at the end of 2007, good enough for
midfield anonymity.
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Thursday 14 May 2009 at 11:42 pm
Having missed all the Fifield evening 10s due to iffy weather and such like considerations, I felt it necessary to brave a rather dull and damp night at Maidenhead Thicket to ensure that a few tweaks applied to the Koga since my last race were working properly before Sunday's 25. A modest westerly wind conveniently evened out the course, slowing me on the downhill outward leg and making the climb back disappear. Gearing at 53/15, because it turned out that the 57 was taking paint off the chainstay, I was in the right gear nearly everywhere, which is rare on that course.
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Monday 04 May 2009 at 11:30 pm
Went out for a little amble round with the old folks this morning, which explains why the
results are listed in a funny order. 18
th out of 41 finishers on
scratch. The new H10/22 course is quite nice, at least the surface is smooth, but it takes some willpower not to give up at the turn, which takes an age to arrive thanks to being a steady climb all the way from the start at the bottom of the Thames valley.
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This is how God (Tullio Campagnolo) and nature intended the Mirage chainset to look, but He reckoned without my desire to get a cheap external bearing chainset with 175mm cranks for my time trial bike.
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