Dreading the moment when I have to take my jacket off

After an eventful (too eventful) first TT a few weeks ago, it was nice to ride a ‘sporting’ TT on a lovely course with smooth rolling roads, light winds (and Baltic temperatures!). The Sudbury CC ‘Mad March Hilly’ is a new event to me - unfortunately it clashes with the similar Kettering CC one that I’ve done in previous years, but the chance to catch up with coached rider Simon (on his first long TT) and smasher Laura meant I decided to give it a go.

My plan was to arrive in plenty of time for a (very) early start and allow for a course recce, but various delays on the road there meant it would either be very tight timings if I did a recce, or nice and relaxed if I didn’t. So I chose not to, looking forward to a nice steady warmup on the rollers before going out on the road. Various organisational issues then intervened: the race numbers weren’t ready when I arrived, then I was asked to get off my rollers so had to do the rest of my warmup on the road, and then my spare skinsuit zip wouldn’t do up! So having had lots of time I didn’t manage to do a full warmup before it was time to get to the start line and reluctantly take off my jacket. I had a baselayer on under the skinsuit, plus skullcap under the helmet and full gloves, but decided to go without knee warmers this time, which I was already regretting (also should have put thicker socks on!). It was 1°C on the start line.

I went off pretty hard (mostly to try and get warm!) and managed to hold pretty good power through the whole circuit, pushing on up the two main climbs and keeping it fairly steady the rest of the time. One turn at the bottom of a descent, which I had been warned about by a couple of people, turned out not to be as sharp as expected, so I lost a few seconds there (but was understandably a little crash-shy). On the last 3-4 miles after that I managed to keep pushing, getting my average power back up over my target (and significantly higher than I usually manage on a sporting course), but then was a little disappointed with my time which was slower than the Spindata prediction (by quite a way). I was also disappointed with my placing (7th overall and 3rd vet – no prizes this week!). A final couple of minor mishaps (slightly lost on the way back to HQ and left my jacket behind so had to go back for it!) but all in all in ok day. It was lovely to see Laura (who smashed it!) and great to catch up with Simon who did a great job on his first TT longer than 10 miles.

Tim Phillips

CC Sudbury 'Mad March Hilly' 22 mile TT, 5 Mar 2023

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