Why is amateur cycling better than pro cycling? Because you can race and half fun doing it no matter if you win or lose. Check the hilarious review of todays Emirates Team Time Trial from the eyes of Paul Turner Diesel. Oh and while Diesel forgot to mention the race results, we did not win today. Frankies had two teams participating (road bike team and TT team): We had two teams enter the Emirates TTT today, sadly no prize money nor even points that you could add to your skywards loyalty scheme. I cant comment on the other TF boys with their old skool bikes, as they were always behind us. Team 27 consisted of Dynamite, Henricks Gin (extra strong at 45% proof), Eddie or Eddie for short and Diesel. Condition of the team wasnt great to be honest, Dynamite with a should injury, Gin with a brand new bike having only 15 km on the clock, Eddie drugged to the eyeballs with his back and diesel suffering after trying to seduce Mrs T with red wine (Big Easy from SA reasonably priced), I thought this race wasnt going to be pleasant. Teams set off at minute interviews, Frankies being 27 & 28. I was at the back and thought that Id have a nice 5 minute relax taking in the scenery, but the pressure must have got to me, those clips are tricky little chaps to clip into first time round, so a quick sprint back up to the boys and we settled down. Bit of a school boy error was setting the strategy to maintain a reasonable pace, we should have slowed down for the first little hill - that put a dent in. But we were overtaking teams within a few minutes so moral was high. We had our own crash as well, somewhere around 20k, Eddie crashed through the pain wall and the real suffering started. Not long after Dynamite managed to destroy my moral by saying come on boys half way there. Well you see, the Garmin 501 can display 8 parameters at once, and I got confused with the distance / Temperature reading, believing at that point wed done 37 km and it was 25 deg C, I did think it was rather mild for this time of year. We had a change of tactics with about 10 k to go, knowing that Mert and Co would be on our tails and not wanting him to bob past. We send back our suicide bomber Eddie, hoping that Mert would be passing as he blew up, and there might be a bit of debris of half a leg on the track to slow them down, it didnt work. Now Im not saying that at this point the turns on the front got quicker, but I did get a bit dizzy as it felt like being on a merry go round. I now have to apologise to some riders of CSD, as sometimes I failed to clearly announce our presence, there are two reasons for this. The first was due to the speed we were going in relation to them, by the time I mustered the breath to shout something, wed already passed them. I couldnt shout too early as they wouldnt have heard me (certainly wont have understood me). The second reason was due to increasing the likelihood of a crash... On several occasions instead of being informed of a team approaching, riders in front would weave across the track, like a deer being startled by on coming headlights and then pelt across the road into on coming traffic. It really wasnt pleasant at 5 km to go, yet on the bright side I did manage to sweat out all the Big Easy, and the thought of being passed by Jonathan Malta in his mid calf high day-glow socks spurred us on, to finish in 1 hour 10 minutes and 05 seconds. Having nearly caught team 20, as well as not suffering the embarrassment of Murt et al catching us up, who were just 10 seconds behind us (1hr 09 min 14 sec), Im now looking forward to my new LARGE skin suit which should shave off 2 seconds from my time, money well spent. Anyway must go as my bacon sandwich is getting cold, it seems that the resolution I made at 5 km to go, to get fit again has lasted about as long as one of my turns on the front.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 15:08:18 +0000
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