{"id":1022,"date":"2015-07-21T09:36:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T08:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/?p=1022"},"modified":"2015-07-23T22:31:16","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T21:31:16","slug":"mersey-roads-24-first-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/?p=1022","title":{"rendered":"Mersey Roads 24"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mersey_roads_24_1\"<\/a>The National Championship\u00a024 hour Time Trial hosted by the Mersey Roads Club.<\/p>\n

A 24h time trial is the longest standard TT race run in the UK. Unlike most TTs, the 24 (and it’s more popular sibling\u00a0the 12h), is not based on how quickly you can ride a certain distance, but rather how far you can ride in certain time.<\/p>\n

I can’t remember exactly why I entered this race, having never raced anything longer than a 50 mile TT before (and that was over 25 years ago). I suppose it was a combination of having a free weekend, thinking that I need some miles in my legs before my main target this year, the Paris-Brest-Paris, plus the fact that my club, Kettering CC did not currently have a standing record for this distance.<\/p>\n

I started at 1:12 pm on Saturday, one of the early starters at number twelve. It was quite windy but warm and dry until about 3 am when it rained for 5 hours. At 8:40 pm I stopped for sausage and chips (and to gaffer tape a lighting rig to my aero bars) at Prees Island for 15 minutes, then again at approx 2:20 for a 20′ nap. This was earlier than originally planned but I had slowed substantially on the previous 40 mile circuit and also, with an eye on the weather I didn’t want to stop after the rain started. By the time I had awoken, had my legs massaged with vitamin I, eaten a pot noodle and put more clothes on, the total stopped time was 55 minutes (16 miles lost!).<\/p>\n

\"Rice<\/a>

Rice pudding for breakfast<\/p><\/div>\n

In all, I was stationary for exactly 2 hours, the two stops above, plus a couple of 10 minute stops at 7:20am and 9:10am and a puncture with an hour to go which cost me 14 minutes (4 miles). The remaining 16 minutes of stoppage time was to replace water bottles and pick up eat-on-the-go food every 20 miles or so.<\/p>\n

There were 99 riders on the start sheet, of which only 64 finished. The winner was Mike Broadwith in an amazing 537.35 miles, the second best ever distance in a 24, less than 4 miles behind Andrew Wilkinson’s competition record. Like Mike, I was riding my first ever 24 hour TT, but unlike Mike, I am old, fat and slow, so was equally pleased with my 368.33 miles and 40th place. My targets were: #1- Not be last, #2- Ride at least 500km (313 miles), #3- beat my vets standard of 329 miles,, and top target, #4- Beat 350 miles, but as the ride went on and I was ahead of schedule, I upped my target to 600km (373 miles) which had I not punctured, would have been very close. Of course, just by finishing I set a new club record, but I was pleased it a reasonable distance. I think 400 miles should be my target next time.<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a>

On the finishing circuit. You ride around this until your 24 hours are up.<\/p><\/div>\n

The course was designed around 3 linked circuits, with the faster riders doing more loops of each circuit to keep everyone together(-ish). This meant that although you aren’t allowed to ride with anyone else, you saw lots of riders as you passed them, or they passed you, repeatedly throughout the day. In particular, I remember one old school gent on a trike who insisted on that old traditional greeting of “dig in” all six times I passed him! There were two trike riders, both over 70 years old, and a tandem trike, maybe Helen will be up for this next year…<\/p>\n

Support:\u00a0Although some were riding “unsupported”, most of us had our own\u00a0support teams. In my case it was my daughter Rachel and her fianc\u00e9 Kyle. They waited on each circuit, calculated when I would arrive and were there by the roadside to hand me food and replace drinks bottles as required. Only once they weren’t there when I rode up to Espley Island, as I stopped where I expected them to be, one of another rider’s supporters came up to me and asked, “what do you need, water, tea, coffee, porridge?” and on hearing the answer rushed of to an adjacent camper and shortly returned with a mug of tea. Although there were a small number of locations favoured by most\u00a0support teams, there were the occasional supporters dotted all over the course so you didn’t go far without someone cheering and clapping you through. I wouldn’t have liked to have done this race without support, not only did it make everything easier (and therefore faster), there was a significant psychological boast in knowing that you would see your team in a few miles time, no matter where you were on the course.<\/p>\n

\"Quick<\/a>

Quick stop for fresh drink and a sandwich.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nutrition: My strategy was a constant flow of carbs by way of a homemade glucose\/fructose based energy drink which I drank in lieu of normal plain water which I would drink on less intensive audax rides. In addition, while Kyle changed my bottles on each stop, Rachel would offer me a choice of either a peanut butter or Nutella sandwich, which I would grab whichever I fancied at the time and eat as I pedalled away. I also carried a few yoghurt snack bars and cheesestrings with me which I consumed occasionally when I felt like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Championship\u00a024 hour Time Trial hosted by the Mersey Roads Club. A 24h time trial is the longest standard TT race run in the UK. Unlike most TTs, the 24 (and it’s more popular sibling\u00a0the 12h), is not based on how quickly you can ride a certain distance, but rather how far you can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1022"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nrtoone.com\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}