The news in brief

I) It's heating up around here. 29 degs by the end of the week, which almost qualifies as warm.

II) I managed the Dave Lloyd (240km + 30km to Wrexham station!) in a tad over 9 hours this year, including 5km going off course 'cos someone had turned a sign around... It only rained lightly for four hours this year. A biggish feature will make it into Cycling Plus.

III) The Dave Lloyd was on Sunday and I felt as though I'd been nailed to the bed on Monday (didn't ride). Tuesday was a bit better and on Wednesday I did the club 25 mile champs. I managed to get around in 55'36 to win - a bit slower than last time (55'13), similar power, but the wind was in the opposite direction, so the start was 5km of headwind instead of tailwind. Ben was second in 56'14 and Simon Snowden third in 58'52.

IV) I did the Bristol South 50 on a warm but calm Saturday evening. Started at 6:40pm and finished approx 1:44:05 later. Good - a new club record and better than my 1:45:19 on that course last year - but alas not good enough to do better than fourth. Only 291W average though, which was a little disappointing. I'd have needed a bit over 300 to win.

But I'm aiming to peak a little later this year - last year I was knocking out 335-340W/hour in July and August, but tailed off a little in Sept. This year I'd prefer to have a stronger September, so will do some proper training in July. We shall see! I have seemingly more than made up for the lack of power with aero improvements, which is promising.

V) Been busy.