This turned out to be a remarkably nice ride. It had been raining a lot in the night before, removing all snow and ice from the roads. Temperature around 7 degrees, I didn't even need my winter gloves. Best of all: no rain to speak of, at least until 19:00
I got a sprinkling of fine rain in the first 30km or so, I stopped, put my hood up, and got about 3km before taking the hood down as it had stopped... I had a similar amount of rain as I went through Boskoop, I didn't bother with the hood this time. When I left CP2 the rain had started in earnest, and I was soaked for the rest of the ride.
The wind was an utter bitch. I was slower to CP1 than last year, 1 minute slower to CP2, yet managed to make it to the arrivé for an overall time 6 minutes faster than last year.
Somewhere in the first 40km or so I pulled a hip flexor muscle, putting my saddle up by 5mm seemed to alleviate it, but the damage was done. The main thing that this made difficult was mounting the bike.
I rode the whole thing solo apart from 1-2 km near the start. Last year I had Martin to draft behind on the leg to CP1. I was nowhere near as broken after finishing than I was last year. Which is an improvement. My distance this year is 1km longer (I did go off route for a tile...), but my moving time is actually a minute or so longer than last year - 10:44:26 vs 10:46:57, so I've improved my faff to forward ratio...
Now at 7/12 months of my RRtY.
The turning head wind was annoying (I rode solo save for the last 20 miles), but not absurdly so.
Miles? This was a Dutch Brevett :p
J