SCCU SPOCO 21m TT - Results Sheet

This looked like it could have turned into another awful morning, like last year, when the rain became particularly sleety and the temperature was only just above zero. Thankfully, the rain held off and the temperature reached a balmy 6 degrees or so, which made the conditions considerably more benign than last year.

Six of us were entered for this first one, but unfortunately Rick Opie was a DNS. Dale was riding his first SPOCO event while David Watt was returning from the dead, after a quiet winter on the bike. Simon T had been putting in some big miles in recent months and was looking lean and hungry, while yours truly had spent the winter on a turdo, so I was looking forward to seeing if it hd actually done me any good.

The first hill seems to go on forever, before hitting the motorway bridge, but after that it is a cuple of miles of net downhill with some very fast and bumpy sections. Do you stay on your aerobars the whole way down or play it safe and go to the bullhorns for some of the turns? While I know this course pretty well by now, I still need to sit up at a few points to avoid crossing the white lines in the middle of the road.

So after a few minutes of that, it is then the second half of the circuit, which of course is the various climbs back up to Bletchingly. There are only three actual hills but they are quite sharp and sap the legs and bike of any forward momentum and make this a truly sporting course. But than, it is time to do it all a second time. Joy! By the end of the second lap it is just a question of trying to be as fast between the lumps as possible and to let the hills take care of themselves. Lots more spinning than on the first lap and a lot more snot, so I must have been working pretty hard.

Not surprisingly, Dale was the fastest KPRC man home with a very impressive 55:xx and yet he still looked as fresh as a daisy at the end. I was very pleased with a 1:00:xx, which was a 5 minute pb on this course for me and was also good enough to claim the handicap win, Apparently, training does work!  Simon T was only just over a minute behind with a short 1:02, while the evergreen Mike Morley rounded out the KPRC riders with 1:24:xx.

Thanks to Jake and Steve Hillier who rode out to support on the day. A quiet start to our Rawson Shield campaign and the closing date for the next one, the SCCU 25, is fast approaching, so please aim to get entered in this, if you can.

	KINGSTON PHOENIX ROAD CLUB
	Event 1 - Hardriders 25% Women SPOCO SE - GS/334 - Open Event
	Bletchingly
	Sun 20 Mar 2016
	RESULT SHEET
No.	Name	Actual Time	Handicap Time		Vets +/-	Scr Pts	Hcp Pts	Awards
48	Dale Lush	00:55:05		00:55:05		7	6
11	Alex Kew	01:00:57		00:53:27	- 06:30	6	7	1st Hcap
44	Simon Trehearn	01:02:04		01:00:04	- 09:11	5	5
16	David Watt	01:03:41		01:01:41		4	4
23	Mike Morley	01:24:44		01:06:44	- 17:24	3	3
14	Rick Opie	DNS