Gordon Arms Mountain Time trial

[Jarlath]

As seems to be the norm these days our amazing youth riders did a great job in representing ERC, in this mornings Mountain Time trial down in the borders.
A wonderful summers ....ahem ...I mean sunny morning greeted us in Mountbenger. It was great to see some of the  ERC riders wearing the new ERC kit, which looks great by the way. I had the "old style" kit on as I was part of the planned "show off our new kit" parade at the fast 9.30 ride yesterday, so mine was in the washing machine this morning

Anyway now that I have mentioned the 9.30 ride yesterday ...my legs were so very tired this morning .....excuses out of the way then.

A pretty stiff block head wind greeted riders on the start line and continued for the first 15 minutes or so of the 20 mile course, which is a steady up hill drag before  a left turn and the much needed relief of a 5 or 6 mile down hill tail wind section.  Dodging the rouge sheep and cattle grids at 40 mph was most exciting.

The tail wind which aided the high speeds down the valley would soon become the enemy as we turned left into a strong cross wind at the base of the toughest hill of the day.  It was down into the small ring for most of the climb as the wind and gradient made it very difficult. 

To beat this hill  was personal mission of mine as this time trail was my first ever cycling event 3 (4?) years ago and the memories of my crawling over the crest of the hill while throwing up while still on my bike ( I never stopped   came back to haunt me.... but this time was so much better.  I smiled at the 4 onlookers at the top of the hill and proceeded in decent mode for the next leg of the course before turning left one last time for the flat head wind section to take us home.

Crossing the line and breaking the hour was a great personal result for me taking 6 minutes off my time 3 years ago  and maybe with  a couple of days rest and some tri  bars I  could knock a  minute or two off my time today.

Results can be seen here

http://www.braveheartfund.com/Community/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10166

[ded]

Good report by Jarlath. I wanted to add my own excuses but they basically involve not riding enough! I took a minute off my time from 2 years ago tho' and just squeaked under the hour (by 7 seconds!) so pleased really. Well done to the yoofs who showed me how old and slow I really am!

Excellent event, friendly with a great course (apart from the sheep and the pheasant that also tried to kill me). Although that Gala lot have a definite local advantage - I have an eyewitness report that at least one of them came all the way down Witchie Knowe on the tri-bars  Madness!!!!! Keith

[phild]

We need to get some comments from our rising stars Stuart and Hamish.  Good luck in the Youth Tour of Scotland on Friday.
I noticed Matthias toward the back of the field, but be afraid, he's a youth B (U14).