Team Grumpy have been riding the Duo Normand since 2003, only missing one year since then. We've had quite good placings in that time, either in the Veteran or Corporate categories. We came second in the corporate category last year, but that doesn't quite indicate the magnitude of the whipping we got from the winners! The Duo Normand website has started listing riders registered to ride. At the moment there are only two teams in the Corporatif category, one being Team Grumpy. Plenty of time for more entries to flood in, though. So is there anything to be said in a preview for this event?Well, we're staying near Cerisy La Salle - in the same location as last year - though our travel plans will preclude any significant 2-up technique practice before the event. And Team Grumpy's 2-up outings this season have been less than stellar (the Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up ‘25′ and the Icknield 32k). I guess we're just hoping that we've done it so long that we'll just fall naturally back into the swing of things.As usual, we'll take the opportunity to do a little exploration of the Normandy countryside on our tandem, see for example 2008 and 2009, enjoying the local food and drink, particularly the moules et frites, a particular favourite of mine.  And of course, drinking freely of the Team Grumpy official energy drink.Finally, for those who've never ridden the Duo Normand and want to see what the course is like from the rider's perspective, can I recommend the world's most unlikely video, which we dubbed Silent Movie.  This was recorded on a small video camera mounted on Gerry's handlebars.Here are our previous performances:2009 - CorporatifsWe may have been second, but just look at that margin!  The BikeRadar team of Jones and Coomber came flying past us...and can be seen in the video of the event.1 COOMBER Robin - JONES Jeff 01:15:222 ORAM Gerard - SAUNDERS Robert 01:25:022008 - CorporatifsBy 2008, Gerry had persuaded me to switch to the Corporatifs category.  Not entirely sure why, but the effect is to ride at a better time of day than the Unlicenced and Veteran categories.  Also the Veterans category has no handicapping.  The guys who won rode a storming race, particularly since they didn't look much like time triallists and were riding road bikes with clip on extensions.

265	1	LENOIR Alexis - LEGRIX Benoit	01:15:55
263	2	ORAM Gerard - SAUNDERS Robert	01:22:28

2007 - no ride2006 - VeteranImproved to second place, will less then a minute between Team Grumpy and the winners!  As far as I recall, this was the only year so far (touch wood) that we've raced in inclement weather.  It was also a weekend break in Normandy rather than a holiday.

217	1	MAYMAN David - HARRIS Mike	01:22:44
219	2	SAUNDERS Robert - ORAM Gerard	01:23:11

2005 - VeteranUp to fourth place in 2005...

204	1	HARRIS Michael - MARK Wunsch	01:20:37
202	2	LE MAITRE Graham - DOWN Patrick	01:21:51
222	3	CHAPLIN Lee - GRIFFITHS David	01:23:08
210	4	ORAM Gerard - SAUNDERS Robert	01:23:15

2004 - VeteranOn this occasion, we crept up the ranking to 5th place, and the margins between the top five riders were rather respectable.

260	1	HARRIS Mike - GREIG Steve	01:20:05
246	2	FOX Paul - JARDINE Stuart	01:20:28
259	3	DODKINS Alan - ROBINSON Ray	01:21:10
266	4	BIGREL Pierrick - LECHARPENTIER Gilbert	01:21:40
264	5	SAUNDERS Robert - ORAM Gerard	01:22:18

2003 -VeteranThis was the infamous year of the cramp, when Gerry cramped up mid-race.  We'd been doing pretty well till that point.  Nonetheless, our first outing at the Duo was excellent fun.

238	1	JONES MARK - GERAN STEVE	01:18:55
214	2	FOX PAUL - JARDINE STEWART	01:19:38
213	3	WOODBURN JOHN - IDDLES ROGER	01:20:59
205	4	LECHARPENTIER GILBERT - BIGREL PIERRICK	01:22:05
231	5	DICKASON PETER - COOPER RUSSELL	01:22:28
233	6	GALLIENNE DAVID - GARNHAM MICHAEL	01:22:29
203	7	GRACE STUART - DONKIN ALAN	01:22:54
224	8	MCMILLAN JOHN - LOVATT SIDNEY	01:23:15
206	9	SAUNDERS ROBERT - ORAM GERARD	01:24:01

Here are a couple of other video segments, taken from the roadside at the 2008 Duo Normand.  Both videos were taken with a pretty basic 5Mp Kodak camera by Carol (who in 2009 had to drive the support car), and both clips are mercifully short, compared to the 2009 feature film. The first clip shows us leaving the start ramp, and climbing up the little lane at the start of the race.

Team Grumpy rode the Duo Normand again in 2009 (see this story, and also the Team Grumpy blog and website). Silent Movie is my first effort at editing video footage - in this case recorded from a video camera attached to "Grumpy" Art Vanderlay's tri-bars.  Thus, you can periodically see my backside and legs, but "Grumpy" Art doesn't feature much at all. I edited the video using the Linux package kdenlive, and rendered it as a 320x240 pixel flash video. Be warned, this is a 90' video, and if bandwidth issues result, I'll need to unpublish this article.  It's also rather boring for those not interested in the Duo Normand! The video seems to play well with Firefox on Linux and WinXP.  IE8 on WinXP seems to throw a wobbly about the Flash Player, though after installing Flash Player 10 it worked OK.  Haven't tried other browser/OS combinations yet.

This year, we had little expectation of a good performance in the Duo Normand time trial. You can read reports of previous events over at the Team Grumpy web pages and the Team Grumpy Blog, as well as the preview of the race.

One addition this year was that we planned to record a video by strapping a small video camera to the tri-bars - if this can be made into manageable file size, I may post it on the web.

As usual, pressure of work led to frantic packing on the morning of departure.  This was followed by the drive to Portsmouth for the Brittany Ferries afternoon sailing to Cherbourg.  We arrived with plenty of time to spare (about 1h30!).  As was the case last year, we were the last car on, and so first off at Cherbourg.

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.

This year's Duo Normand time trial will be held on 21st September, and after a year's absence, Team Grumpy (a.k.a. Gerry Oram and me) will be competing again.  For a change, we are entered in the Corporate category instead of the Veteran category (we may revert to veteran if we continue to be the sole team in our category!).