where the odd and the mediocre wait…

Over the next few weeks i’ll be racing in three more open time trials. One 10 mile event, one 25 and a fifty!

Despite having competed for a few years now, I still struggle to put my finger on exactly what the appeal is. They hurt, they can be dangerous and competing can cost lots of money. And time trialling is not exactly adrenaline fuelled!

Yet, up and down Britain, almost every day of the year, people are putting themselves through the pain just to try and beat… themselves.

Y’see unless you’re at elite level and winning events, the only real satisfaction in time trialling is beating your personal best and for most people that only tends to happen for a few years while you’re new to the sport. Once you have been racing for a while though, the P.Bs dry up and you’ll plateau.

The usual solution is to begin ‘buying time’. A new bike, deep section wheels etc. For a few hundred quid you can get back that feeling of success by beating your own best time.

And that’s the odd thing.
23 minutes and eighteen seconds is a completely arbitary time period for everyone in the world apart from me. For me it is the time I achieved once in a ten mile time trial and on recent evidence, a time I’ll never achieve again.

But despite not getting any younger, thinner or having disposable income for a disc wheel, I keep going back. Just in the hope that one day I’ll re-live the old days and beat 23’18”. A time that some of my fellow riders will never achieve and that others would be very disappointed with…