Super Mac heads the pack

Sat Aug 2nd was another hot day with wind at the Inter Club 10 hosted by IRC. This was the fourth event of five to be held in this series. I have been lucky enough to have ridden in 3 of them and have found them to be entirely enjoyable. There is a great sense of camaraderie, whether you are the fast boys of part of the also-rans who are looking at breaking their PB. This follows on from a similar theme at our own Club TT on Thursdays. 

Anyway I am slightly off point so back to Saturday. We started arriving from about 1245 and helped to get things out in the village hall. Signed on, pinned on numbers, chatted to others from all clubs and received our pep talk from Simon (can't remember a word). I was 5th rider off, with Dave Richards some eight minutes behind me so we rode to the start together. I jokingly told Dave if he beat me today I would retire. Quick recce of the course revealed it was windy but not hilly (hurrah from me) and I felt good.

The start was just off the main road running through the Marston Moretaine bypass (old A421) and was 2 laps, 2  lots of 3 mile straights and 4 roundabouts. Piece of cake! It's great to see all ages, shapes sizes and levels at these events. Most of our riders who can ride 15mph would do very well. So back to the race, countdown, breathe, clip in, try to look cool, then go. Hit the road, think pedal, controlled, look ahead. Roundabout 1, damn a car approaching, can just get there, car stopped anyway, now next 3 miles, head down, wow 23mph, must be feeling good. Roundabout 2 at 3.5 miles, look cool, don't fall off, accelerate, there's Dave, "go on Dave", chase Get back to start, blur of SNCC riders encouraging me, wow, so good. Overtaking a couple of cyclists. Roundabout 3, 6.4 miles, still feeling good, accelerate, still 22mph, slow slightly, average that's good over 19 mph. Roundabout 4 8.75 miles, this is better than I thought. Better look good, press hard on the pedals, it's only a short distance, where's my legs gone, there's the finish. Great done it, no Dave, will wait for him and look cool!

Back to the start and Mark says looks like you've not done a TT. Smug smile to myself as I've just done a PB on my bike, 19.3mph, no great shakes, but it's what it's all about. Chat for a while with the rest of the team, Simon asks I take his smelly t-shirt back to his car, how can I refuse! 

For the rest, Super Sam McDonald won. Very impressive time of 21:43, 7 seconds clear of second. Rest of the team rank highly, Mark Greenhow 9th in 23:52; Karl Hiner 11th in 24:11; Simon Richardson (back to form) 12th in 24:24; Paul Littledyke 29th in 25:40; Simon Murphy 35th in 26:35; Dave Richards (on a cracking run at the moment) 37th in 26:57: Stephen Lyons 44th in 28:05 and myself 56th in 31:16 (did I say a PB).

Stephen was unlucky with his time as he lost about 30 seconds at the start due to traffic.

Now my moan. We have 155 members and only 9 riders (no ladies). Chris Green was going to ride but had a logistics problem (he was in France). Despite having a lot of highly placed riders we came 5th of the 5 teams. IRC beat us on the day despite only having one rider in the top 30 places. We are still 2nd in the Inter-Club series for the season but surely we can put out 15 to 20 riders, we need ladies to ride as well. You don't have to be super-fast, if you can ride at least 14mph you can represent the club. It's good fun, you only bust your gut for a short period of time. There's cake and coffee at the finish. Simon will appreciate everybody who turns up not sure if he will buy the cake though.

Next interclub event is the hill-climb in Oct, I did it last year and it's great fun and I came last and still enjoyed it. Watch Simon's ask for riders to attend, make it a 50 miler by cycling there and back.