Lateralus

First of all, to be consistent I must mention the weather: 10°Ré and sunny today, but with a 30km/h WSW wind blowing. Rejoice!

The event: Bristol South 25 miler, wot I have been looking forward to for several months 'cos I wanted to see how fast a TT bike can go on this course.

It's got a fantastic start: 1km of downhill on the A38, followed by another 11km of rolling gradual downhill, then a 9km up and down loop to rejoin the A38, then another 5km to the turn, then back 14km along the same road to somewhere near the start. But without having to climb the last hill! British time trialling course rules are weird like this.

The A38 has a pretty crappy road surface with lots of potholes, so it's not considered a 'fast' course. But it's fun to ride. Especially to Tool's Lateralus (I owe that tip to Josh).

There was a tailwind for the first part, which made it a lot of fun. I hit 73km/h on the starting slope, and did the first 12km in just over 14 minutes. After doing the middle loop I got to the turnaround (26.4km) in 33'35 - still over 47km/h average. But the way back was somewhat tougher: the last 14km at 36km/h. Caught 10 people though.

Final time: 56'50. Supposedly 295W average, but again the offset was two blips out so it would have been closer to 305W. I'll compare the Ergomo readings when I start testing a Powertap disc wheel.

Although I missed the win by 11 seconds, I was quite happy with my ride. I think on a calm day, a sub-56 minute ride is possible. One of these days I'll beat my long standing 40km record of 55'47. I must have been quicker in 1990...

We won the team prize again (that's three this year) with Andy Cook (1:00:51) and Paul Coles (1:02:46). Allez and forza Chippenham.

I did the first club 10 of the year last Wednesday. It was cold but calm and I got around in 22'36 @ 320W, which is 45 seconds better than I did on my road bike at this time last year. Ben did 22'13, so he's on track for a decent ride in the national 10 championship.

Book launch of the week: Uncle Alex Jones's Morris in the Antarctic (apologies if I got the title wrong). I'm looking forward to reading it though.

Gadget of the week: A Garmin 705. Once I get the road map chip, I'll never get lost again. Plus it has all the cycling data that you could ever want. I'm lovin' it.

Brownie of the week: an almond one from the Epicurean Deli. A really rich, gooey chocolatey slab of goodness. I need these in order to maintain weight, which pleases me. A lot. And I won't mention the 300g of chocolate that has mysteriously disappeared in the last 24 hours.