Drybridge Icebreaker TTT

So we took part in our first ever competitive bike Time Trial this morning - we have done plenty of club 10 & 25 mile time trials & longer 100+ sportives but never one of these.

The Icebreaker is a good first race of the season - a 12 mile Team Time Trial out on the A78 near Irvine. Myself & Mrs ATHelite were the team - going off together you take it in turns to draft & hang off your partners back wheel but change positions every 30 secs to a minute to keep the pace high & technically recover (very) briefly.

We arrived to find lots of fast looking guys sitting on the road side on turbos before the start - all I wanted to do was dump the bike back in the car & just run it. Shows where my comfort zone is.

Best practice is obviously to practice this constant drafting/leading changeover & I am sure most teams did. Not us though - typically for us we got to practice for the first time during the 10 minute warm up! Lucky that as husband & wife we are completely in tune (?!?).
The warm up/practice/finessing was a little sketchy to say the least but as soon as we left the start we actually got it together pretty well with some good communication & lots of code words being shouted (none that we had agreed on 10 minutes earlier!).

Our main aim was to get as near to 40 minutes as possible but weren't sure about it as the wind was pretty blustery in every direction as always. After a very hard last 1/2 mile chasing down the clock we actually managed 39.51 so really pleased. Not only that but we discovered after we left that we actually won 3rd mixed team so over the moon for our first proper bike race.

Summary -
1. Mrs ATHelite seems to be really comfortable on the bike - pushing some pretty big gears throughout and spending half the time on the front when initially we thought I might do more.

2. I however need to do more work - I did not find my bike set up comfortable & know I can go much faster than that. First race though.

3. Fullarton Wheelers do a good spread afterwards - can't beat sugary tea & battenberg after a race!!