Rode the Cardiff 100 Mile CC 25 yesterday. It's a fast course that I have ridden before – except that this time I arrived to be informed the course had been changed because of roadworks. Inside the HQ a slightly testy fellow was explaining the new course in an opaque manner. I brought a road atlas from the car to help. He peered at it in a long-sighted fashion and announced it was fucking useless. So, having worked out what his description meant I showed those present where it went and, more importantly, where the start was. Eventually someone drew a larger version to display.
Arrived at the start, checked the position and disappeared for a warm-up. Came back to find a gaggle of riders in a lay-by who said the start was wrong and was being moved to this spot. Sure enough, the time-keeper and pusher-off drove up in a hurry and set up. They'd sent the two-ups off on a short course.
I did another warm-up turn and returned to find the start still in the same place. I'd asked for an early start so I was 3rd off in the main event. Passed my 79yr old minute man fairly quickly and settled down to 'just painful' on the speed scale.
I was approaching 40mph on the gradual descents but slowing to less than 20 on some of the long drags. Every so often a gusting headwind would catch me. However, the final stretch of dual-carriageway was increasingly fast and I sprinted flat out to the line, hoping I might have beaten the hour.
I crawled the 3 miles back to the HQ and waited while our man tapped at his computer and wrote up random results from much further down the field. After what seemed like ages he finally wrote something against my name: 58.45.
I am pleased with that. Full results sheet is photographed
here (scroll down a bit).
