Duncan Orme Global PBK Team rider gives us his review of the Lancaster CC Spoco TT at the weekend.

The Lancaster Cycling Club 21.6 miles time trial is a local event for me, so I know the roads well as I spend a lot of time training up and down the Lune Valley along which the course runs. Unfortunately for me as the LCC are my 2^nd claim club and the organiser had decided to put me off as the first rider, so I had nobody to chase. I always prefer to have someone to aim to catch as it gives you some direct feedback on your performance, but it was not to be.

Having ridden the Circuit of Ingleborough the day before my legs weren’t as fresh as I would have liked plus I was suffering from a reoccurrence of the sciatica I had this time last year, but I did have the benefit of my nice new HED Stinger 9’s and local knowledge of the course. So after a long warm up on the turbo to loosen my legs up it was off to the start. The first 10 miles or so are on the flatish eastern side of the river running through Hornby and on the day this was predominantly a tailwind until Greta Bridge where the course turns and you get more of a cross wind up to Kirkby Lonsdale. I hoped the wind wouldn’t be too bad but by the time I got to Greta Bridge my legs were feeling the effects of the previous days race and every little rise in the road was taking its toll.

By the halfway point and the crossing of the Lune at Kirkby I was praying that the headwind on the return leg wouldn’t be too bad, this side of the river is much hillier with 6 climbs in the space of 6 miles a couple of which have pretty poor road surface after the winters frost and rain. The first stretch through to Arkholme wasn’t too bad as the surrounding hills seemed to be giving some shelter, but then the climbs began. At first you can be lulled into thinking these are ok in the big ring, but years of riding up them in training have shown that it’s much better to tackle them in the little ring if you’re riding into the wind and today was no exception. There is very little time to recover as they hit you one after another and with next to no shelter from what was now quite a strong cross/headwind.

The pain in my legs had either gone or they were numb from the cold as I seemed to be getting up the hills quite well considering the previous days efforts and very quickly I was over the worst of them and close to the downhill finish. It was flat out over the last mile leaving just enough to shout out my number as I passed the timekeeper, a quick look at my computer and I’d got under 56mins, so an improvement of over 4 minutes on last season. Once all the times were in all 3 of us were in the top 10, Chris 4^th, me 7^th and JPS 10^th and winning the team prize to boot, so a good morning out for all.

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