Team Grumpy approached this year's Duo Normand with the expectation that we'd do less well than in previous years - both riders have had less than stellar seasons. In the event, we did better than we expected, I think, despite being trounced by a seriously strong team riding for BikeRadar.com (Robin Coomber and Jeff Jones), who rode a superb race, taking the category record with 1:15:22.
Two main issues concerned us - firstly, we received emails the day before we set off for France saying that a following car was compusory (we had to drag Carol into this role) and secondly, rumours abounded that the UCI bike regulations would be enforced in all categories. The latter rumour caused us some concern, and a day or so before the event, we made final checks that our bikes complied.
The Duo Normand two-up team time trial is held annually in September on a 54.3km circuit based in the Normandy town of Marigny. from a British time triallist's point of view, it's a spectacular event - not only because of the numbers of spectators, but because of the large numbers of competitors (in many categories from unlicenced to professional) and the virtually closed roads. All the teams can have a following car in case of mechanical problems, though Team Grumpy have never availed themselves of this in the 5 occasions we've ridden it.