To follow on from yesterday's blog about the Long Course Triathlon jellyfish filled swim section,
today I'll let you know about the bike.
The morning started off at 5.30am to get some breakfast and make sure everything was ready to set out for a days riding. Our start time was 7am and as we left the house a light drizzle started which was around on and off for most of the morning.
Rain makes the road surface tricky but does have a nice cooling effect, especially when the weather was so warm.
The first hill was within ½ mile, by the 1 mile point I was walking at the side of the road to a clear space because my chain had got jammed in my wheel. I sorted it out and headed off to catch up with the others.
At
the next steep hill where I needed my easier gears the same happened again. I had ridden less than 5 miles and had already had two faults with my bike.
It fell over in the garden when I unpacked it on Thursday, I gave it a quick check over but didn't test it on any hills. It had messed up the hanger at the back, I didn't think anything could be done about it as it was a hassle to get fixed last
time it happened.
I decided it would be better to ride using only the bottom half of the gears.
My next challenge hit on the first real down hill section a couple of miles later. The chain fell off on the outside :(
I decided I would try and get by on the middle gears. Have a look at the profile below,
it was pretty bumpy.
I wasn't looking forward to doing it but thought it wasn't worth speaking to the on-course mechanics as there would be little they could do. I told myself that if there was a mechanic at the water stop I'd get them to have a look.
A result of having less gears is that everything is a little harder work. 30 miles in and my legs were really feeling it.
With every up
there's a down and on the downs I was taking the opportunity to rest my legs and pick up some pace. On one descent I shouted forward for my friend to put some pace on.
Luckily for me, he's an experienced motorcyclist and he said that he couldn't see around the corner and to hold back. It was a great call, as we went around somebody had missed the corner because they were going too fast and was climbing out of the ditch.
Over the next 40 miles, my gears clicked, jumped and
slipped into my wheel about 10 times. I fell off a couple of times as a result when I hit the gear lever on autopilot on the steep climbs and the chain jammed.
It was starting to really do my head in and I didn't really have confidence in my bike on the climbs and there was a lot of them. My legs were also starting to get fatigued.
Then as if by magic a mechanic was at the side of the road. I pulled in and he managed to bodge my bike a little to give me most of
the gears.
The hills were better after that and my legs were getting a breather.
Then I received a text from Fran to ask if I knew there was a cut off time. Obviously I hadn't read that part, me and my mate had been chilling and taking it easy.
We only had 40 minutes to do just over 10 miles. Around here that is easily doable for us both. Unfortunately, we had the hilliest 10 miles of the course to go.
We decided to give it a go. It was hard work, my gears went
a couple of times on the steeper climbs but we made good progress.
It took its toll on my mates legs though and the last hill took him out, he told me to go for it but I had 3 minutes to do 2.5 miles.
There was no way I could make it before the cut off. We got there about 10 minutes late :(
I would still get a medal for completing the bike ride but I was out of the running for the fourth medal that tied them all together.
I really should learned to read the instructions before I just
tootle around the countryside on my bike. I was pissed off with myself for not knowing about the cut off.
It wasn't going to change things, so as the princess says 'I let it go'.
There really is no point being in a grump about something that has already happened and can't be changed.
We need to all learn from this lesson. I know so many people who hold bitterness due to past experiences.
Those experiences or people still have power over their lives. They still make
them angry or sad.
The past is in the past, distant or recent, don't let it affect your future. You can move on and still achieve great things.
My whole reason for picking that event was the four medal cluster. Whinging about it wasn't going to change the fact that I was too casual going around the route.
I accepted that I wasn't going to get the set and went to prepare for the marathon the next day.
Darren 'Elsa' Checkley
P.S. Thank you Wendy who suggested using chamois cream / lube, it
has made long rides much more comfortable on the bum department.
