Powerful ride by Ian to get a great result

National 50 TT - 18/06/2006 - R50/1B - South Wales

A late minute revised course didn’t deter Ian from producing one of his best performances of the season in the National 50 TT Championships in South Wales on Sunday 18th July.

The course was a late minute revision of the original course based near Monmouth and near Abergavenny and took in some minor roads on what ended up being a smaller circuit covered 3 times by the riders competing for the National Title over 50 miles against the clock.

After covering the course on his bike the day before, Ian was quietly confident as he had good legs on the Saturday before the Championships and the conditions on the Sunday morning were almost identical to his reconnaissance lap the day before.

Careful not to start to quickly and suffer later on, Ian started strongly but in a controlled effort as he quickly settled into a quick rhythm. As the opening miles flew by, Ian realised he was going well and decided to step on the pace as he came close to completing his first lap of the relatively fast course.

As Ian completed his first lap there were several other riders in front of him on the road some of which were just starting and he quickly caught and passed several riders. By the middle distance of the Championships, the pace was beginning to tell on Ian as he felt to struggle a bit, but in an event of this distance, the sense of struggling is often in the head and this proved to be the case with Ian as he took on board more fluids and some energy gel and started his final lap quicker than he had his second.

At the 40 mile mark, Ian still had good legs and was still catching and comfortably passing riders who had started in front of him on the road and Ian even passed riders who were starting behind him completing their earlier laps of the course. As Ian approached the chequered flag for the end of the 50 mile time trial, he was surprised to still have good legs and continued to power his time trial bike strongly over the closing miles to cross the line in a great time of 1.50.23 at an average speed of 27mph.

A pleased Ian was over the moon with his performance finally finishing 10th in the National Championships and he was also 1st in the over 40’s age category. Ian had been showing signs of good form of late, but he didn’t know whether the good ride today was down to good form or several pints of Guinness the night before!