Racing in UK

Yesterday I did the first of two planned races in UK..the "Team Cambridge 10". As with (apparently) many of these TT's,much of it was along a busy dual carraiageway..the A11. Going into the race I was freaked out of my tiny brain by 2 things..the aforesaid busy ...VERY busy road and the roundabout at the turn around.

The drive in to the race started off wet, but we were driving towards a brighter sky and eventually were on a dry road ..good.... racing in a heavy dowwnpour is an all time attender in my list of freakworthies.

The HQ (at Six Mile Bottom..forgot the camera) was about 5 km from the start along a "good tyre wrecking " country road, so like most others we opted to register then park near the start,which put paid to my regular 3 toilet trip habit.

In the end my warm up was almost non existant as my chain got stuck..turned out it had slipped off the jockey wheel..but it took a while and the help of a friendly guy to sort it, by which time I had all of 10 mins before my start.

And so to the race..10 miles is 16km. I took 25mins 33 secs, losing 1 min out and 1 min back to my coach. The race out was a challenge for me for all of the above reasons..I rode closer to the edge of the road than normal so didn't have the best line and so had to keep an eye on the cats eyes that kept threatening to launch me into a lift off. Towards the end of the out journey I was clearly catching someone up and this then became the problem of the day..dare I move out into the road to pass her!!!??? In the end I passed her at the roundabout where she was clearly even more timid than I.

The homeward bound trip started off dry, but ended up in the sort of rain storm that caused all the men's field to miss out on a race as it was deemed to be too unsafe to race. Race time 25min 33 secs..14.05 out 11 something in.

Dry clothes, a cup of tea and a bit of flapjack and I met up with Colin Griffiths whose blog I follow..I'd told him to look for a shortie with an Aussie accent! It was good to catch up in person with someone you ..sorta know..! the sad thing is he didn't get to race..and just now reading his blog I realise he's entered it specially cos I was going to be there...what a huge shame to come all that way.....and as we left the sun was shining brightly. Sooooo frustrating. I also met up with Kevin Gill who I met at the World Track champs last year and had a hoped to catch up with Carole Gandy, who I know from previous world champs both road and track, but she was a DNS...must have read the weather report!

On the way back I was shown the memorial garden to the gentleman who started TT racing..whose name eludes me...and it really is BIG here in UK..not like Aus where I have to spend hours trawling club websites to find events....its their answer to the prob of holding bunch races.

My recovery tells me that I'd not raced 100% and certainly the size of the neg split indicates that. My next race will take more out of me as there is a hill similar to St J in it. Today is a bunch ride ending in the pub!!!!