Well, this was a first ! All year I had wanted to do a time trial - but didn't either plan it in properly, take the time to find one or even find the bottle to just turn up at one and have a go !
Today was the day to put that right !
I had heard about the annual Boxing Day TTs on the club runs where a variety of kind people had encouraged me to give one a go - and that is how I found myself in the car park of a pub in Saxilby at 10am on Boxing Day morning. This is how it went :
We registered and were given our race numbers for the day - then as a bit of a warm up we rode a mile out to the start which was a pull in just past the traffic lights on the A156. Each of us were then set off a one minute intervals and after the first eight riders were off it was my turn. I approached the start line and was held in place by the starter whilst I nervously tried to get my feet clipped in. He counted down from five and I was off !
For the first minute I can't remember much, the adrenaline took over and I just went for it. There was a strong cross wind which literally kept blowing me towards the middle of the road - quite scary, but I knew the road turned soon and just concentrated on trying to keep as straight as possible. I kept pedalling and the road veered to the right - brilliant , thats better I thought to myself. I kept going OK until I passed what I thought was the turn off and having thought I had gone wrong lost concentration and let my speed drop. I was contemplating turning around when I saw an arrow in the distance and realised that I was in fact going the right way !
At the arrow, I turned left onto the A1133 to Laughterton into what I thought was going to be a bad head wind, but to be honest it was not too bad. I had also settled down into a decent rhythm and planned to grind this part of the race out in readiness of the backwind I suspected that we would have when we got through Laughterton and onto the A57 straight for the finish.
The A57 junction soon appeared and as expected there was a strong backwind - all the earlier battling with the wind was all made worthwhile as I got into the largest gear on the big ring and just went for it - it was the fastest I had ever ridden I was sure of it ! I crossed the line in a time of 21.41 of which I was really pleased with.
Well, that was my first ever TT and I took away lots to ponder, things to tinker with next time , and a benchmark as a starting point for 2012 where I plan to do lots more of these and look to go faster and faster.
Details of Lincoln Wheelers can be found here http://www.lincolnwheelers.co.uk/ . I cannot recommend joining a cycling club enough - the Wheelers have been fantastic !
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