Sunday 11th October 2009
Myself, Darryl & Rob competed in the Chippenham Wheelers 3up time trial. Arrived early to find that the pigeon that Darryl had avoided had in fact been speared by his tt bars, after removing the rather fetching feathers from his bike we set about checking out the course. The approx. 23 mile course was hilly, technical, long fast descents and some flat sections meant it was a course to suit everyone, however the drizzle was getting worse and we faced the prospect of riding a tricky course in very tricky conditions.
Tactics for the race – easy on the corners and arrive back in one piece!
We set off and quickly got into TTT mode, slick and smooth, arriving at the first set of corners I found myself misjudging the tight left hander and taking it very wide, this disrupted the order as the others had taken the corner at the correct speed and we quickly settled back into our rythym. The first climb loomed and we took to it at steady pace, kept the group together and once over the top quickly got back up to full speed, as we approached a small village we eased off to ensure a safe passage through the narrow roads. Once safely through we hit the A4 which was smooth & straight, however there were quite a few drags and this accompanied with the cross wind and ever increasing rain meant this section was tough, Rob who was steady on the hills was very strong on this section and really kept us all working hard.
Once the last upward section of the A4 had been completed,we had a very fast section down towards Calne, then turned left to complete the last of the biggish climbs before the finish, this was a test as it was steepish in places and seemed windy. Cresting the top we quickly got back into full TTT mode and blasted to the finish line.
Job done, back at the HQ we found that our time of 58:15 was very respectable and that quite a few teams had failed to finish (unsurprisingly), as the final results came in we had in fact finished 2nd in the mens team and 1st in the veterans section. The trio of Phill Sykes, Simon and ?? were about 5 or 6 mins quicker but we were well chuffed, especially with the prize fund of £23 each.
