This event is the usual curtain raiser for my racing season, and it’s also the first 2-up event that I ride each year and as such gives an indication of how Team Grumpy‘s form is at this early stage in the season.  Usually, we also take advantage of the journey over to Wales to visit interesting archaeological sites, previous visits having included the Avebury stone circle, the Uffington White Horse and Wayland’s Smithy.  This year was slightly different: we stayed in Bath for a couple of nights en route to Wales.

I’d never visited Bath before – we enjoyed traipsing about seeing the Royal Crescent and visiting sites such as the Assembly Rooms, the Roman Baths, and the Herschel Museum.  Bath appears to be astonishingly well endowed with restaurants, and we visited a fish restaurant (One Fish Two Fish) and a Moroccan restaurant (Cafe Du Globe), both of which were excellent.

On to Wales for the main event, and the signs were ominous.  Gerry’s training programme had recently gone slightly off the rails, while as observed over at the Team Grumpy blog, I had suffered an extraordinarily painful back injury three weeks before the event which not only prevented training but threw my participation in the event into question.  To add an interesting frisson of excitement, it transpired that the Team Grumpy entry had been lost in the post, and only a phone call of enquiry from Gerry earned us a start in this event.Absorbing medical advice, I did in fact manage to recover in time turn up in South Wales in a relatively pain-free condition.  All that remained was to see how we’d perform on the day.

In time-honoured fashion, we conducted our usual preparation: consumption of sufficient energy drink. Thus fortified (and indeed entertained by 80s pop music courtesy of Sky TV), I retired to dream soothing (and deluded) dreams of time trial success.

The morning of the event dawned rather cloudy and cool – but not as cold as the sub-zero conditions faced by riders in the 2010 edition of this 2-up.  We set up the bikes with clear apprehension: what would the consequences of our combined lack of training and form be?  And would my back hold out for the whole 25 miles?  More to the point, what was the road damage on the second half of the course to which riders’ attention was drawn on signing on?  And, indeed, how significant was the presence of traffic lights on the same section (to which the instruction that riders must ‘obey the highway code’ was appended?

In an effort to answer these uncertainties, we mounted the bikes and nipped out for a brief warmup. It was quickly apparent that (a) the road was in a shocking state, and (b) the traffic lights were at the top of a climb and looked like they could present real problems if at red.

With reconnaissance over, and all too soon, we were lined up and ready to go.  We launched ourselves onto the course (see map below), with only a brief backward glance from Gerry.  The opening dual carriageway stretch proved to be very fast, with a gentle tailwind.  We were pleased that we were able to fall back into 2-up mode straight away.  After the first turn, the going got a little harder, as the head wind was nagging.  We were gratified to see our “Manager” on a bridge apparently videoing proceedings as we made their way past the start area (see video below).  Once off the dual carriageway, the usually efficient Team Grumpy changeovers became rather ragged as the pitted and potholed road surface made it difficult to judge whether a rider was pulling out to let his team mate through or merely to avoid crashing through a pothole.

A massive sprint pulled us into the traffic lights on amber, but at the cost of a bit of an oxygen debt: this rendered the approach to the turn somewhat arduous.  Returning to the traffic lights, delays were once again avoided.  This was just as well, as by this time we were hanging on for grim death, looking for the finish line, which seemed to take an eternity to arrive.  Eventually it did, at 1:04:36.

This wasn’t an excellent result (though not as bad as it sounds: the course is rather hard at times), but enough to take a composite team prize.  More to the point, at least Team Grumpy proved their ability to ride well as a team, even after a lengthy winter lay-off.

Results are here.

We awoke to a cold and frosty morning – with very little wind to make our racing hard – and all the predicted precipitation was noticable by its absence.  Our customary preparation of Thai curry and Singha beer was having side effects as we set off for the race HQ in Cheddington, but once we gained entry to the hall, we quickly got ourselves and our bikes sorted, and set off to the start.  Gerry had decided to use his Xentis wheels, and left the H3s in the car as reserve.  As you’ll see, this is significant.

To reach the start, riders need to cross two narrow bridges with traffic lights – it was just after the second of these that our plans unravelled.  Hearing a muffled exclamatio, I looked behind me, to see my erstwhile team mate doing a U-turn.  Surmising (correctly as it turned out) that he was having a technical problem, I did the same, only to  get stuck at red lights on both bridges.  By the time I got far enough that I was worried about missing our start, Gerry was nowhere to be seen.  I returned to the start with about 2 minutes in hand, and anxiously looked back along the road.  With Gerry absent at our appointed start time, I somewhat reluctantly decided to ride solo.

The event went pretty smoothly.  The climb up Billington Hill was as usual difficult, and there were a few occasions where I got a bit held up by traffic. I finished in 49:34, still unaware of what had happened to Gerry.  On returning to the race HQ, I discovered he’d had three (!) punctures and had eventually ridden solo in #39′s slot – h finished with 49:16.  For a bit more detail, see the Team Grumpy blog.

Since we didn’t finish (or even start) as a 2-up team, I won’t bother posting the results.  Suffice it to say we were a little disappointed, particularly given the distance Gerry had come to ride the event.  At least we got a decent ride round the course.

Course decription – Start on B488 at Gateway opening to Grove Farm, near overhead cable pylon, about 100 yards from the Village Sign of. Great Gap proceed in a southerly direction to Ivinghoe. Turn Left, (care, give way sign) by Kings Head PH onto the B489 pass Church on right Turm left onto B489 up an over hill to Travellers Rest double R.JB junction with A4146 Take first exit onto the A4146, through Edlesborough, Northall and Billington to RAB junction with A505,take first exit onto A505,over next 2. R.A.B to RAB junction with A418, take first left onto A418, thorough Wing, {care in village} to Wingrave Cross Roads. Turn left through village to duck pond. Turn left on unclassified road to Mentmore Cross Road Turn right (care) follow road up to Mentmore, down through Mentmore Park to Finish at a point by concrete telephone manhole cover on grass verge marked 192 this is about 800 yards before the double RAB at entry to Cheddington Village, Distance 30Km