ATHelite 25 Mile Hilly TT Report

Sunday was a fabulous day for the ATHelite Hilly 25 Mile Bike Time Trial - sunny & not too windy for a good blast, not too hot to spoil the post race tea and cool enough to stop the post race carrot cake from melting in the car.

After waiting for a couple of riders who were finally declared missing in action (one has admitted to being too hungover to ride, the other has yet to make contact) the first rider went off at 8.55am.

Timekeeper Graeme set David H off complete with a bike lock the size of something found on a scrap yards gates attached to his frame. Two minutes later & next off was Derek who fired off down the hill in the small chain ring. It was in fact such an easy gear that he created enough wind for the turbines on the adjacent whitelees windfarm to all turn to face him.
Next up was Mark who had to stop 10 metres in to pick up parts of his bike & then promptly overshot the junction adding a bit of extra time & distance to his race.
Bringing a bit of female order to the proceedings, Genevieve was off next without any problems. I was next man off and I could see that this left Timelord Gman with the 3 EKRC bully boys - Bill, Michael & Faither. Having left instructions for them to stick strictly to the 2 minute intervals they clearly over-ruled the timekeeper in my absence & reduced the gaps to 1 minute each.

The course starts briskly towards Newton Mearns on the A77 before turning left onto Malletsheugh Road and left again onto the energy sapping hills & head wind of the Stewarton Road. Straight out to Stewarton, onto Kilmaurs then another leg draining climb out of Kilmaurs before heading toward Fenwick & back in on the A77.

I immediately regretted my zero warm up and also probably headed off way too fast resulting in me limping feebly up the early climbs with a serious overload of lactic acid in the legs. I eventually rode this off as I passed through Stewarton. Luckily the traffic lights had recently been green & thus the ride through the town was completely legal. Kilmaurs soon arrived as did the climb out at which point I was passed first by Michael then soon after by Faither who appeared to have Bills hair caught in his back wheel. Either that or Bill was DRAFTING.

It was a relief to get back onto the A77 at Fenwick and I was back into my comfort zone on the flatter faster road & got a good pace up on the way back in to offset my poor performance on the hilly sections.

Final finishing times (minus the seconds) for the Hilly 25 TT were as follows;

Faither 1.03
M&M 1.04
Dulux 1.07
Freebie 1.11
Mrs ATHelite 1.13
Herbie 1.25
Yogaman 1.25
DerektheGolfer 1.27

Following a post race appeal it was decided that Dulux was DQ'd for drafting.
Following a second appeal it was decided that Faither was DQ'd for entertaining drafting.
Following a third appeal Michael Martin was penalised 25 mins for turning up to a training session in an aero-helmet thus getting an unfair advantage.

This now meant that Freebie was quite rightly 1st Male. Mrs ATHelite kept the competiton at bay & finished 1st Female.

Well done everyone for a fun session, thanks for the Gman for timekeeping & thanks to Genevieve for serving a full range of teas, coffees & cakes, on china, from the back of a car in a lay by.

We will hold the 25 TT again in the next couple of weeks then we will do a two lap 50 TT after that.