Alan MacInnes writes…
After a diet of nothing but club 10s I was keen to try something a bit longer before the season came to an end so what better way to test the legs than a 25 on a fresh September morning? I had been looking forward to this ride for sometime and with my newly acquired TT bike I was feeling a bit bullish and was confident that I could crack the hour.
I arrived at the HQ nice and early to pick up my number 81 where I bumped into Jonathan Carter and David Law who were both staring at the treetops insisting that there was more wind than last year, my thoughts on the hour were already fading, then a quick hello to Steve who was strolling through the car park to go for a warm up, a nod to Mr Winkley who was spinning his legs on the turbo and a smile from Richard Woodward as we went to retrieve his bike from the car – good turn out from the EG lads. I could feel the butterflies in my stomach starting to twitch.
This was my first ever attempt at riding a full 25 miles at top speed so my main concern was how I would fare up for the return journey. Everyone I had spoken to basically told me that the secret was not to go out too hard – I needed to have a good warm up but make sure that I save myself for the home leg. So that’s just what I did. I knocked back a large can of Red Bull, did a few warm up miles and rolled up to the start line. By now the butterflies were gone and a cheery faced Andy Seltzer wished me luck and gave me a nice big push off. I was very careful not to go to hard and it was about 4 miles down the road when I actually started to turn the power on. I passed numbers 78 and 79 and was given a big shout of encouragement which was nice and just before I got to the turn I saw my minute man which gave me a bit of extra boost.
Instantly after the turn (where I received further shouts of encouragement from Ben) I felt the slight headwind, it was just enough to slow me down by a smidge and attack my rhythm but after passing a few more riders I was totally fixed on sticking a minute into the guy with 80 on his back. I finally managed to squeeze past him as we approached the penultimate roundabout but I blew up and he came storming past me just before the final roundabout and put a 30 yard gap between us, but I wanted that minute and surprisingly my legs allowed me to go hard again and I beat him to the line by 5 seconds.
Now for the slow drag back to HQ.
The coffee and carrot cake was washed down greedily on my return to the HQ where I found that Steve had won with an impressive 52:16 and what with my 58:25 and Richard’s 1:03:19 we had done enough to get second place in the team events and I managed to finish 9th over all.
A good day indeed, maybe we can win it next year.
Results 1 Steve DENNIS East Grinstead CC 00:52:16 2 David POLLARD In-Gear Quickvit RT 00:55:36 3 Jim CHEEK In-Gear Quickvit RT 00:56:02 4 Iain BROGDEN Eastbourne Rovers 00:56:07 5 Felix ENGLISH Team Corridori 00:56:20 6 Michael DAVEY Giant CC 00:57:16 Other club results Alan MACINNES 00:58:25 Richard WOODWARD 01:03:19 Paul WINKLEY 01:03:28 Jonathan CARTER 01:04:57 David LAW 01:08:55
