The sky was as black as a black thing as I waited at the start of this event. With a few seconds to go I was as ready & raring as I'm ever going to be, but it wasn't raining. Then I was off. And I was totally soaked through within 100 yards as the heavens opened. As I was drenched, I thought that it wasn't worth stopping but came off the tri-bars as a precaution against being buffeted by the wind. Eventually found a bit of shelter on the A11 and rode down a river that by now had formed. After a couple of miles the rain eased down a bit (ie from torrential to not quite so torrentia
Bit cold first thing, but soon warmed up to something comfortable. Out from Henham to Debden, Greenstead Green (where I missed the control thus adding 15 kms by the time I got back to it), Coggeshall, Gt Leighs and back to Henham. That was the first 110kms (plus the extras). Then came a further 50kms as I rode via Hare St & Elmdon back to HQ followed by the last 55kms via Takeley, Much Hadham & back.
After missing a chunk of the season, I decided to give the super-speedy Hull course a visit. My feeling was that as it was on flattish terrain that I would just have to rest lightly on the tri-bars thus not causing myself any injury or aggravation. I also wanted to see if I'd still got the nerve to ride my TT bike, in the tuck position.
I passed the timekeepers at 23:17, my fastest this year. Whilst I was happy with the time, I was more than happy with just the taking part and look forward to trying again before the season closes. =71\112. PW.
Ready to leave Sawbridgeworth at 07:00, and that's when I found out that my Garmin wasn't working properly - I had no track to follow. I knew the journey down was about 45 kms and I knew about 90% of it. Still left just over 4 kms to get lost in. Eventually got down there about 08:40 and met up with John Mac. After about 10 kms of the Audax I'd finally got myself a working system re the routesheet and we completed the remaining 97 kms quickly and efficiently. We parted company so that I could ride back the 70kms to Hertford, thus completing the ECE part.
Ten riders set off bang on 9.30 from Allenburys, bound for Thremhall Park, Takeley, right next to Stanstead Airport runway. You might detect a trend here as we were next to Luton Airport last week!
We took a similar route as the one to Hatfield Heath, before turning off on the long straight road for Takeley.
Seven gathered in sunshine at Hertford for a ride to the Chilterns. The initial chill was soon dispelled and gilets and arm-warmers were dispensed with along the way. The route was more-or-less straight out and back to Harlington, though with minor deviations to add variety. One such was an unintended stretch of the A6 as a result of mis-navigation by the leader. This might be presumed to be creeping senility - though the leader maintains, after consulting Street View, that the sign for Hexton had been removed.
