Mike Anton writes…
This was my third time of riding this event and I had reasonable hopes of a decent ride.
Last year I managed to go for four whole minutes before my tri bars snapped. It was however looking ominous for this year when some last minute headset fettling on Thursday evening went wrong.
An emergency dash up to Mr Dennis saw some initial head scratching but fortunately Steve saved the day, so thanks very much to him!
The course starts at Handcross and has a nice downhill run to Cowfold before turning out to the A24. A loop back into Partridge Green then has you off down to the Steyning bypass. From there it’s over the Adur and then back north through Upper Beeding, Small Dole and on to Henfield.
This stretch has some ups and downs especially the climb into Henfield. From there its east out to the Shaves Thatch pub before heading back to Henfield via the Albourne road.
A quick detour into Henfield has you then returning back along the A281 to Cowfold. All the little hills prior to this are nothing compared to the grind back up through Crabtree, where the 30mph+ speeds of the outward run are a distant memory.
The downhill stretch through Plummers Plain is a welcome relief but the final run back to the finish is deceptively uphill. Steve doesn’t notice things like this but I for one always find this a slog.
I finished in 1:46 exactly, over 4 minutes quicker than 2004.
Our resident Ironman triathlon expert, Mr Kevin Bashford put in a very respectable 1:49:43.
We don’t often see a lot of Kevin, which is a shame as he’s a bit quick on the longer events. Perhaps we need to bring him over to the light of riding 10’s and 25’s?
1st place went to Jason White of Team JD Cycles with a time of 1:37:21.
