BUCS Team Time Trial (TTT), 16 Mar 2025

On Sunday, March 16th, I raced in the BUCS 3-UP TTT for Loughborough University Cycling Team. I never expected to find myself on another BUCS start line, having stepped away from triathlon 18 months ago and graduated last summer.  But having rather unexpectedly secured a PhD place, I found myself back at Loughborough in September. In the spirit of postgrad life—trying new things and embracing continual learning—I figured, why not give bike racing a go? Cycling, despite being the last of the three triathlon disciplines I took up, has always been my favourite. Ironically, that’s why I swore I’d never race it as a solo event—I didn’t want to lose the love by becoming fixated on results. But I’ve realised there is nothing to lose by giving something new a go; you never know when you might stumble across something that you absolutely love unless you go outside your comfort zone.

My team were amazing. We hadn’t had much time to practice together, but from the moment we lined up, we had each other’s backs. We started strong, taking longer turns on the front while we were fresh. Six laps in, we realised we were consistently holding the same distance behind Team Bristol—lap after lap. It was time to make a move. We shortened our turns and pushed a bit more into the headwind to close the gap and overtake them. Our eighth lap (8/13.5) ended up being our fastest!

That said, I think our push gave Bristol a bit of a boost, and they came flying back past us—but it didn’t matter. We stuck to our plan, kept communicating, and stayed in sync. I also got the chance to practice my echelon technique in the crosswinds, which helped me conserve energy for my turns into the headwind—especially on the uphill. I believe we nailed our pacing strategy; our lap times were remarkably consistent, within just a couple of seconds of each other. My legs only started to pinch in the final two laps, which felt like a sign that we had paced it just right.

I was so proud of our effort. We finished sixth overall—a result that felt pretty incredible, considering we had a rookie (me!) and one of the girls smashed the course on a road bike when the rest of the teams ahead had full time trial set ups. I came off the bike absolutely beaming. I loved every second of that race—a feeling I haven’t had in a long time. I think more bike racing is definitely on the cards, but my overall aim remains the same: I’ll enter races because I want to learn and have fun.

Lilly Gibbs