Simon Best breaks the hour at Shaftesbury 25
Mon 18 Aug 2008
Shaftesbury CC Middle Markers 25 - Course E2 - Saturday 16th August 2008
By Simon Best
Saturday afternoon at 2:03pm saw the start of the Shaftesbury CC Middle Markers 25 mile time trial on the E2 course.
With a cut off time of 58 mins I had no trouble making the grade with a best time of 60mins 3secs.
The E2 course is flat and can be very fast on a good day, along the dual carriageways of the A14 and A11. However Saturday did not seem to be the best of days with it being cloudy overcast and quite windy.
A good warm up saw me get to the start line feeling pretty good and to my luck I was 3rd person off at 02:05pm with a field of over 150 behind me and bad weather predicted to come from the west.
I set off steadily and was making good progress catching my minute man after only 11 mins and 2 min man after 18 mins. It was difficult to tell what the wind was doing but looking at my computer I assumed that there was a slight tail wind on the way out as it said average speed of 25.3mph.
Thinking that the going would be tough on the return leg I kept a bit in reserve for the turn around at fourwentways.
31 mins at halfway left me feeling resigned to the fact that today was not going to be my day for finally breaking the hour.
It did not take long to realise that the breeze was in my favour on the way back, which is not what I had expected at all.
The return leg was rare experience in a time trial, quite enjoyable.The big gear seemed to turn over with little effort and my only question was by how much would I beat the hour.
I crossed the finish line in a very pleasing 57mins 12secs (2mins 51secs of my previous best) and with true time triallists
mentality immediately though ‘ dam I missed a 56 by 12 seconds’.
A short ride back to the HQ saw me watch rider after ride arrive with a huge grin on their face. Everyone was doing PB’s and by big margins.
On reflection a very pleasing day with me achieving my goal for this year to go under the hour. Sadly I am now no longer a middle maker and have to play with the bigger boys. C'est la vie.