Following their successes and progress over recent weeks the South Wales faithful felt ready to take on their nearest 10-mile TT course, registered as the R10/22a, starting and finishing in Resolven. Thankfully, Derek the Weatherman was completely wrong with his long range forecast and we were able to sneak out for a couple of hours of self harm.
The home-made segments have been great and they’ve helped us chart our progress over the summer. They’ve also pushed us to compete against ourselves and each other, digging deeper than we would if riding alone. But there’s nothing like a ride on a recognised TT course, one that we’ve ridden dozens of times in the past, for putting a few more watts into the legs and pushing us harder (and deeper).
So we made the short trip to Resolven, minus Rory who was suffering from an avalanche of work following the relaxation of the COVID restrictions and that realisation that comes to us all from time to time — sometimes we need more than 24 hours in the day.
This being a real TT course, we needed to get Dan on a TT bike so we needed a bit of creativity with start times and equipment. Dan and I set off early, getting to the course with the Argon 18 TT bike and the aluminium 2011 Boardman. Context: Dan hasn’t used a TT bike on the road before and is a bit skittish when it comes to using the tri-bars on a road bike!
So we stuck him on the Argon and headed up the dual carriageway towards Glynneath. A nice smooth 3-mile stretch, with Dan leading the way and myself (Simon) on the road bike offering some fatherly advice in between the traffic noise. Dan was holding the TT bars with a death-grip, hating every second of the experience and spending an inordinate amount of time on the white paint that separates the carriageway from the hard shoulder. It’s a tooth-chattering experience. We reached the turn and stopped for a brief exchange before making the return trip. Dan was settling down by now and seemed to be warming to the feeling of riding at 20+ mph with only a moderate effort. We were buoyed by the tooting of Jeff as he passed us in his car, heading to the meet-up point.
The warm-up complete, we wasted no time and got Dan to the start of the R10/22a and sent him on his way. We wouldn’t see him for a while, so Jeff and I continued with our warm ups. About 20 minutes later Jeff was on his way. Soon Dan returned. He looked rapid over the last quarter-mile but there was no time for analysis. Out came the allen keys, up went the seat post, same bike new rider, and off I went towards the start.
We met at the completion of my ride, at the Resolven Canal car park. At the time of writing I know little about the experiences of the others — we talked about the weather (as the Welsh do) but were anxious to get home and watch our football teams go head to head.
For myself I know that I pushed hard from start to finish, felt like I paced things right, tried to repeat the aero lesson that I’d learned the previous week, and was quite satisfied with what looked like a “short 24” subject to checking. Dan reckoned Jeff had clocked a similar time. For himself, Dan had rolled in with a “short 26” which represented 23 mph for him and must have felt like warp speed at times.
In the final analysis we had times of 24:16 for Jeff, 24:18 for Simon, 26:11 for Dan (with a mere 15 minutes of riding experience in the TT position). Dan commented that he felt much more relaxed on the ride than in the warm up, which is a great sign. When he relaxes into the position, he’s going to leave the rest of us standing. But 2020 is a unique year in so many ways and we oldies will take this short-lived success while it lasts.
Regular readers will have noticed a pattern over this series. Across all five events our mentor Jeff has recorded the quickest time on the day. He’s a former Welsh champion in other disciplines of cycling but you’ll be hard pressed to squeeze any information about it from him. He’s a quiet achiever and if you watch him on the bike you’ll see an effortless rider who makes it all look so easy. It’s not. Jeffrey, please slow down.