Time Trialling - A New Challenge

Quite often the idea of Time Trialling crops up into mine and Ric's conversations whilst we are out and about. Some other people we know do it and, as we are quite competitive, thought we might at some point take part in a race and, hopefully, put in a reasonable time and not be

A) - Too slow
B) - Embarassed
C) - All the above

And so, after a few discussions with my Club Secretary Steve Whiteside I found out there was a route close to my home that I could ride on a Tuesday evening.

To start with, I think a 10 mile TT is more than diffcult enough for now.

Previously I had done a 10.8mile route in about 32mins meaning I should be able to break 30mins ( 20mph ) for a proper circuit.  Now I know there will be plenty of TT'ers out there laughing at the slowness but I don't have a TT bike and I ain't nowhere near strong enough to get down to the dizzy speeds really good riders get down to.  In fact Mick Black from my club at the tender age of 66 still does 21 / 22mins....yikes!

Before I actually stumped up the courage I did a little `trial` run just to see how slow I would be!  My `test` route followed the same route as L105 but because I live at the opposite end to the official start, I started and finished in different palces but still did a 10mile route.  My time was, I think, a respectable 27:43.  No Tri-bars, no pointy aero helmet or deep aero wheels.  Just me and a struggle of pacing yourself over the entire course.

This was the `un-official` 10TT - the blue line is my route

 

 



So what do you think?

 

My Club Secretary reckons a minute off that time with a number on my back!

 

But anything under 30mins on a standard road bike shows a reasonable level of fitness, apparently.

 

So, I'll guess we will see.

 

If I pluck up the courage to enter.