Coventry CC TT K11/10T, 8 Aug 2020

Very different weather conditions for my second open TT of the year, with very warm temperatures and reasonably high humidity making for a hot day in a skinsuit! in fact getting my skinsuit on when already rather sweaty made for a slightly stressful beginning to the day. I had driven the course which was a dual carriageway with a nice surface, one roundabout to go straight across each way and a turn which was down a bit of a hill. The way back drags up and the wind unfortunately was unhelpful in that direction as well.

I started ok, riding within myself for the first half but cracking along on the beautiful smooth surface - really exhilarating apart from the car that had stopped on the exit from the straight on roundabout - luckily saw it in plenty of time!

It all changed after the turn, with the short downhill seeming a lot steeper on the way back up, meaning I was down to my lowest gear in the big ring and going way over power hoping that I could recover a bit afterwards. Of course the continued drag back up combined with the unhelpful wind meant that was wishful thinking, and the rest of the ride was really tough, seeming to go on forever! I finally dragged myself across the line in a very disappointing 21.27, showing how slow the way back was as I had reached halfway (including the turn) in well under 10 minutes.

This gave me 29th/127 in a large and strong men’s field, and 9th vet.

Tim Phillips