Time Trials, Road Races and Lakeland Hills

 Photo: James Ruskin

The last couple of weeks have contained some annoying distractions for me, meaning I couldn't ride my bike as much as I would have liked, exams I think they are called, and I wouldn't recommend them. However, I've still been riding a bit, so here is a little picture update of me riding in the sunshine. 










University 10 mile TT Champs

I travelled down to Cambridge to do the uni time trial champs, it was really sunny and warm and I had the loan of a disc wheel. I rode to the start line, got there ahead of time and heard the noise no one who has just drive for 5 hours to ride 10 miles wants to hear; my back tyre going flat. They let me start later on but I didn't get an official time. I was in no way frustrated. Moving on...

Ingliston Criteriums

There were five criteriums being run at the Royal Highland Show ground at Ingliston, which Maddy and I both took part in, they were a lot of fun, and provided a very welcome excuse to not revise.

Lakeland Sportif

On Saturday I rode the Lakeland Sportif, I really enjoyed it. The route was 65 miles long, and was kind of like the Fred Whitton Challenge with all the easy miles taken out. It went over Whinlatter, Newlands and Honister from both sides, in a figure of eight loop which my anti-sense of direction would on no account have allowed me to ride if there hadn't been signposts telling us where to go the whole way around. The route was pretty spectacular, I hadn't ridden in the Newlands valley before, and was really pleased this gave me the opportunity to do so without getting completely lost on the way there. My Polar tells me that the maximum gradient was 28% but I think you can see from the route profile below that some sections are quite clearly overhanging. 

I've also done a couple of road races, the Cheshire Classic in which my chain dropped off the first time up the hill, I rode around in a group of around 15 and got pulled out before the finish by the organiser. I also rode the first couple of stages of the Bedford 2 Day but got ill probably due to trying to revise in between pedal strokes. All fun and games.