Team Time Trial

Standing in for a mate at short notice, I had never attempted a time trial, let alone a team time trial with 3 other guys, 2 of whom I’d never met or ridden with. Should be OK I think…

The 26.5Km event was in Peterborough, so was really close for me which was one of the reasons why Duncan asked me to sub for him. I drove down to the showground, whilst Steve, Tim & Tom took the train up from London and cycled to the event. I met the guys and was provided a Transferwise cycling jersey (Transferwise is the company the rest of the guys, and my mate Duncan work for), we were entered in the corporate classification and of course, team kit was necessary.

I got changed and we all signed in at registration then took a coffee and a quick bite to eat. We familiarised ourselves with each other, although I had ridden with Steve before in France the previous year I did not know Tim & Tom. We talked tactics, which were pretty simple – try not to start too crazy, then front moves off to the right when they feel they need to rotate, second third and fourth move up and front slots on the back.

As this event was part of the Tour of Cambridgeshire weekend, it was very well supported. Lots of cycling stalls, shops and other things to look at were available at the départ. For the time trialists there were banks of turbo trainers set up for warming up on. Our allotted times came round quickly and our bikes were set up on the turbo trainers for us for a 20 minute warm up. It felt a little odd, but for an event such as a time trial was necessary.

Sufficiently warmed up we were then placed in a short queue leading up to the start ramp. We watched a few teams head off in front of us and then it was our turn, we were on the ramp and were being counted down. The adrenaline/nerves were pretty high and as soon as the countdown completed we were off at a tremendous rate. I was absolutely on the limit just staying in the group, let alone taking a turn on the front! I suspected that the pace we had gone out at would not be maintained, but I was wrong.

We carried on at the start pace and I was seriously doubting that I would be able to hold on and maintain pace with the guys. I was almost 40 years old and I was hanging in with boys in their late twenties. The distance accumulated quickly and we were working well as a team, pulling off and coming through largely as we had planned before the ride. Steve was by far the strongest rider but I felt that Tim, Tom and I were of similar fitness. This saw Steve doing slightly longer turns on the front than the rest of us as the ride progressed. Things would get a little more ragged in formation going up the 1 or 2 climbs in the course, but after those inclines we were heading back in towards Peterborough and were still flying – emptying the tank to the finish line. There was a roundabout to negotiate as we returned back into the finish zone and Steve went a bit too fast into it, running off wide and not making the third exit. The rest of us could see he was ok and had to continue onwards to the finish line as it was the time of the third rider that was taken as the result. We crossed the finish line around 1 minute later, and what a relief it was to finish.

We stopped on a grass verge where other riders were also stopping, and we were presented with an alcohol free beer each, so we enjoyed that very much whist excitedly chatting about the ride before finishing the beer and heading to the arrivée to get our time stamp.

Official time was 41minutes 28 seconds, over 26.42Km. This was an average speed of 38.1Kmh (23.4mph). We won the corporate classification, although the field within this class was small (2 teams!) it was nice to win. We had to hang around for what seemed like an age to receive the winners prizes, which consisted of a medal, a pair of socks and a crate of alcohol free beer. After that we all headed our separate ways, me back home with the crate of beers and the boys back to London (they couldn’t carry the beers). It was a brutal event which saw me absolutely on maximum effort with an average heart rate of 171bpm for the ride. I’m not going to rush to do it again, but it was an interesting thing to be a part of.