Like everyone, we’re still wondering if/when we’ll get the chance to ride a time trial in 2020. There are so many pieces that need to fall into place for an event to happen — an easing of the restrictions, variability by region, the availability of HQs, practicalities at an event, pushers off, pens, presentations, race numbers and many more. No point in speculating about the future; for now, we’ll just ride the bike.
So in the meantime a few of the VCC South Wales contingent thought it would be fun to get out and have a blast on a local course, and on May 28th that’s what we did. All social distancing rules were maintained and the result was a very enjoyable (but painful) training ride in Porth, Rhondda.
First on the road was rookie rider Daniel Kinsey. Dan has a mere nine weeks of riding experience, having started turning the pedals when the COVID lockdown came into force — and that was on the mountain tracks of upper Rhondda. But while he’s a complete novice in the saddle this guy has an amazing engine having spent most of his 23 years as a hard-tackling box-to-box midfielder in several football teams. Annoyingly he’s already snatched several of my segment PBs. Dan was riding a Boardman Air 9.0 road bike.
A couple of minutes later went yours truly, on the Argon 18 TT bike that’s carried me around the TT courses of South Wales for a couple of years.
Next was Rory Jenkins, an experienced rider who has had a little break from the bike but is hoping to make his return to the TT scene in 2020 if conditions permit. A very smooth rider who improves with every outing, Rory is another from the younger generation. He went off third, riding a beautiful Ribble TT machine that he’d put together over the winter months.
Finally on his Quintana Roo we had Jeff Rees, an all-year cyclist who competes in TT and CX where he represents the Gower Riders CC. Like me, Jeff is the wrong side of 50 but unlike me he’s a consistently good rider. He’s a modest bloke, Welsh CX champion in his younger days (not that you’d ever hear him mention it) and has a riding style that makes everything look effortless when every rider knows it’s not.
We started at intervals of approximately two minutes so that there’d be no prospect of any rider catching another over the five-mile course. The track is familiar to a few local cycling clubs and is quite TT-friendly. There’s a slight uphill drag to the turn but, in truth, it’s the flattest five-mile stretch you’ll find in the Rhondda. The road surface isn’t bad either so it’s a nice little course but, like anywhere, in the wrong type of weather it can be a miserable experience.
Today we were lucky. The moderate breeze aided us up the gradients to the turn and didn’t give us much resistance when going the other way. So we made the most of things, went full gas for the duration and — as designed — finished in the order we’d started.
Personally I was absolutely shattered after the near 14-minute effort but I thought I’d paced it quite well and couldn’t have squeezed out any extra on the night. Considering this alongside the favourable conditions, I’m not expecting to go quicker any time soon.
There were PBs all round on the night. Rory thought he’d started too slowly, so there could be more to come from him in the weeks ahead. Jeff uncharacteristically complained of chest and leg problems throughout, but still managed to weigh in with the quickest time on the night — so we expect him to dip below 13 minutes when in good health! And Dan was very satisfied with his “short 15” on the road bike so can expect to make huge gains when switching to a TT machine.
While the main event went to plan, the same can’t be said about the remainder. We’d intended to do some top-up laps on the top loop of the course, alternating between easy and hard efforts. But that session was quickly aborted through a combination of fatigue and loose bike parts! Instead we packed up headed off home to compare notes and plan the next session. It was great to do something different and we all thought the company of others made us push a little harder than we otherwise would have. It was a reminder of what we’re all missing while we wait for the real thing to return.
We’re intending to do something similar next week, weather permitting. Anyone interested in joining us can get in touch via Strava, Twitter, email or this site.