A 12 hour Time Trial and back to some HILLS!

12hr Time Trial and back to some real HILLS!!

Avid readers of my blog will have seen the 100 mile time trial my friend Pete rode. He did a superb 3:46 for the course!! This weekend just gone he rode a 12 hour Time Trial, and yes, that is 12 hours (ideally) non stop on a bike. This is mentally as tough as it is physically.

In theory you can stop but the idea is you ride as far as you can in the allotted amount of time, so a stop is costing you valuable mileage. So Pete asked me a few weeks ago if I was busy and of course I was not and asked if I could help him with bottle and food passing. The ride was done on the same 20 mile loop of the A31 south of Farnham. Not the best place to be sat for 12 hours but it stayed dry and occasionally sunny so all was well!

The crazy people entered started at 1 minute intervals from 07:00 and Pete was off at 07:52, he had said they would not need helping until 90 minutes into the ride so I targeted arriving at 09:00 to start giving bottles to Pete and James. For some reason Google maps on my iphone decided to stitch me up and sent me randomly 30 miles away from the course. With this extra mileage I was on a range of 0 miles of diesel left and started to get concerned there would be no fuel station open. Luckily after 10-15 miles on fumes I stumbled upon a fuel station and calmed down again and soon arrived at the start of my day on the A31.

Pete on his way to earniong himself £10 prize money...

First time past and Pete was happy he did not want anything, he looked very aero and noticeably fast compared to almost all the other riders. There was a few others that had that fast “hum” as they went past. Next time round he was after “bars” only. So bars I passed to him. James had passed and briefly stopped to have some solid food, jam sandwich and some coke. James had a friend who was due to turn up to take over my job for 2hrs around midday and sure enough he arrived just pre 12:00. So I was released to go for a quick spin around the roads.

I set off and found there was a road race going on a few miles away, so I quickly turned off that road and bumbled my way on the back roads. I arrived back on the A31 and Matthew had already gone but I was just in time for another bottle hand over for Pete, and then soon after James again. Pete was having a low point, his aches on his feet were cramping up and he suffered for this for 2 hrs between hours 6 and 8! After this miserable period he seemed to rally and was flying again for the final 4 hrs!

The end results (from memory), Pete second overall with 292 miles (24.3 mph av) and James 270 miles. Both excellent results. Strangely both said they would never do it again…. but do we believe them..?! The memory is short…. :-)

So when I started to write this I was about to fly back to France for some real hills. I am now in Beaulieu Sur Mer and on my third day of training. As I am sure most people are bored of reading my dribble now, so I will pop another blog out soon about my training here.

Thanks for sticking with it!