Gary and Chris left to rue what could have been!

30 riders were brave enough to enter the s4/50, including some strong riders. Julius Jennings, Stuart Hall, Karl Hodson, and Gary Foreacres to name a few. The course is a pretty hard one with several long draggy climbs and some fast descents. Sean Childs is the course record holder with a 1hour 52minute ride.

The alarm clock went off at 4.20am and up I got blurry eyed to pick Chris Lobb, my team mate up and head up to Buckfastleigh for a 50mile time trial on the s4. I would be lying if I wasn’t wondering what the hell I was doing! As I picked Chris up we could see several drunken people returning home from nights out on the booze, things normal people do I suppose!

Both Chris and myself had only ridden one 25m time trial this year and never even attempted a 50m time trial as we have been concentrating on the road so expectations weren’t very high. Chris was race number 37 and myself 55. The start time had been moved from 7.00am to 7.30am, we both assumed that number 1 would be off at 7.30am. WRONG!

It turned out that number 30 was off at 7.30am, this caused both of us to be late, Chris by 18minutes and myself by 7minutes! The timekeepers assured us both that we wouldn’t be deducted any time for this and off we set. With a fairly stiff breeze I could feel my tri spoke catching the wind in sections of the course but quickly settled into a nice tempo and was quickly catching people, this was worrying as I wasn’t sure if I had set off to fast as I wasn’t sure how to pace myself as this was my first ‘50’. However on the second lap I realised that I was still feeling strong and maybe I had judged this just right. I had!

I stopped the clock at 1hour 51mins 36secs. A new course record!

However when the results board come in, Chris and I both had time penalties after all. I was given 1hour 58mins and Chris 2hours 11mins. Chris had actually ridden a cracking 1hour 53minutes which would have given him third place!

We both faced the long drive home completely gutted! Hard to take!

Results:
1st: Stuart Hall – Altrax – 1. 52. 56
2nd: Julius Jennings – Guercotti – Jjcoach – 1. 54. 48
3rd: Tom Albion – Guercotti – JJ coach – 1. 55. 18

More to follow…