NBRC Stoke Hammond '10' 22nd April 2026

The second club event in 2026, and I was wondering how I'd go. The start list was a modest 8 riders, two of whom were definitely faster than me, and two who's likely performance was unknown to me.

I slected the Cerveo P3 with the Hed trispokes for this event as I thought the P5 with its very deep section front wheel would be a bit of a handful in the windy conditions (again) forecast for this event. After riding out to the event, I was pretty sure that for the most part the wind would be a cross-wind. And so it proved - the data confirms this nicely.

I found the race really a bit hard this evening. Maybe it was because I ate shortly before setting out to ride, but it wasn't easy to settle into the ride. I had delays due to traffic at several of the turns. On the whole, the wind wasn't too much of a hassle: it did slow me, but was only really twitchy in the opening straight. I got stopped dead at the very first junction by a line of traffic. That was frustrating since immediateky after that turn the course goes uphil, and it's always good to keep a bit of momentum. Still, at least there was a stiff tailwind up the rise.

I got into more of a rhythm on the main dual carriageway section, and had my minute man in my sights, catching him just after the turn, though occasionally I had to mover from the aero extension owing to the cross-wind. I had further hold-ups in the last couple of miles - firstly a slow car moving round a roundaboutcaused me to pretty much stop, then a line of traffic slowed me as I approached the final roundabout. A white van flashed me to move into the right hand lane, so that wasn't too bad.

After the event was complete, I'd obviously been making a strong effort - I was coughing heavily! But my time was pretty damned poor, at 24:39. How much of that can be blamed on traffic I'm not sure, but I'd estimate 30s or so. I was 5th on the evening, beaten by the two unknowns as well as those I'd predicted to be faster than me.