ERC 2021 Midweek TT Series - Week 12 - I came back from Crete for this?!

19 August 2021

Week 12 and our first 5M TT of the year. I say 5M TT, it was at one point a 5.5M TT but I’m pretty sure when designing the course Google Maps went a bit skewy and must have taken me around the roundabout 4 or 5 times. The 5M TT is in reality a 4.6 mile TT, but for prestige and having two less characters to type out each time, we’ll call it a 5M TT.

You’d think a shorter TT = less to talk about, well, you’d be somewhat right but in true report fashion we’ll take a diversion.

As you can see with the picture I used for this week’s report, I have entered the realm of current affairs. I don’t have the Olympics to talk about this week. You may recognise the man in the picture as Dominic Raab, the UK’s Foreign Secretary. A man who throughout his cabinet postings these last few years has come out with some eyebrow raising comments. He thought ‘taking the knee’ was a Game of Thrones thing, he didn’t realise how closely linked the Ports of Dover & Calais were, got the Red Sea confused with the Irish Sea and as Brexit Secretary, admitted to not having read the Good Friday Agreement. Raab is a someone who’d rock up to the Tranent TT week after week, then on one particularly windy evening claim ‘nobody saw this headwind coming.’ What’s even more amazing is that he isn’t the worst. I suppose when Johnson is top of the tree one can hardly be surprised. However, we do have Priti Patel as Home Secretary. Having her in charge of the Home Office is a bit like putting Count Dracula in charge of Transylvania’s Blood Donations. Ahh I needed to get that out of my system.

On slightly more pleasant current affairs, and of a cycling nature too. The man with the 2nd best moustache in Nebraska, (Steve Canney will always be 1st), Ashton Lambie last night broke the Individual Pursuit World Record and thus became the first ever person to go under 4 minutes for 4km. Ashton broke the record in a time of 3:59:93 – to put that in context, if he did that pace at the TT last night he’d have finished in 7 minutes 22s. Not only is the speed and outcome unimaginable to someone like me, he also rode a 64 tooth chainring, I’m not sure I’d even have the bicep strength to lift one up to install let alone try and pedal it.

#Compulsoryweddingchat – no wedding news as such this week except that Hannah and I hosted an engagement party last weekend. A Tale of Two Parties I think. The first half, when our parents and family members were there was a very pleasant garden pimms party. The second half, once the parents had left, became an evening of beer pong and flip cup drinking games. It highlighted to me that I am marrying the self-proclaimed 2012 Flip Cup Champion of Colorado, I’m actually more surprised Hannah doesn’t own a t-shirt or hoody to highlight such an auspicious title. I did particularly enjoy the moment when Hannah played against her Brother – never have you seen a more competitive sibling rivalry. If Peter does something, Hannah has to too. I once went around to their parents’ house and their Mum told me earlier in the day Peter had climbed the tree in the back garden, upon hearing this what does Hannah do? Yep, you guessed it, because Peter climbed the tree, Hannah went off a climbed up it too. Hannah did win the game of flip cup vs Peter, she is the Colorado champion after all, and celebrated in slightly tipsily style by flipping him the V.

I also mention the engagement party because Rory and Sandy were there. This will add value to Sandy’s 7th place at the National 25M TT the following morning. Once 8pm had passed Sandy had resigned himself to maybe less than ideal Nationals prep so rather than worrying about doing openers, he played beer pong instead.

Okay, to the racing. Over 30 signed up last night with a couple of DNS, 29 hit the start line. A thankfully dry start line, albeit one where you knew the fun would last around 10minutes and for half of that you’d have a block headwind.

We had a good outing of under 18s again last night. Kasey Park was the first of those off and she finished in 13:52. Theo Cunningham, aged 14, was joint 24th overall and 4th fastest road bike in a time of 11:58. Alasdair Easton, aged 13, was 22nd overall finishing in 11:45. Redd Hibberd who I hope has dried off from last week did a time of 12:06. Cameron Adam of Musselburgh RCC, aged 15, a consistently strong performer was inside the top 10 again. Cameron finished 9th in 10:11.

Two women raced yesterday evening. The winner on the night was Sarah Scott of ERC who also finished 20th overall in a time of 11:13. Sarah Emslie was 21st overall, 25 seconds back in 11:38. The numbers of female participants has dipped the last couple of weeks, with four events to go it’ll be great to get this back above five each week again!

Of the road bikers last night Colin Sills of ERC was the fastest. Colin completed the 4.something or other miles in 10:53 which placed him 14th overall. Not far behind was Simon Titmuss of Ronde CC. Simon was joint 16th with Pierpaolo Sidoti – they both had finishing times of 11:07. A couple seconds back in 3rd was Keith Froude of ERC who finished in 11:09, which was another joint finishing time. Chris Howie joined Keith on 11:09 to finish joint 18th overall.

In true Kermode & Mayo style I’ll start the top 10 in 12th, Michael Perkins was first rider off because he had a show at the Fringe to catch. I did appreciate the commitment to both squeezing in a race and date night. Michael finished in 10:42.

10th and his first outing in 2021 was Veep Euan Munro who despite being held up by traffic lights (that’s assuming if whatever you read on Twitter is true) finished in 10:31. 9th as previously mentioned was Cameron Adam. 8th and I’m sure powered on by the success of a fellow Nebraskan, was Steve Canney in 10:10. 7th and another Rory Downie bike fitting TT series recruit (Rory gets a commission for each person he bike fits and tells to race the TT), was Ben Dixon. Ben was held up by tractor traffic. One tractor was unfortunate, two tractors is a bit fishy. When he claimed he got stuck behind not only two tractors, but also a caravan, learner driver and a traction engine – I was suspicious. Ben was the first rider to go under 10 minutes in 09:58.

I was 6th, check me out. I didn’t think a 5M short sprint TT would be to my liking. I am usually much better suited to 25 mile TT’s where I can use the first 20miles to warm up before feeling good in the last 5. Yet I was only 1 second behind Alan Dean and Oliver Teenan in joint 4th place. There was much temptation my side to doctor the results, 1 second – who’d notice?! However, temptation didn’t get the better of me. 3rd was Sandy Waller in 09:21 – Sandy obviously didn’t have a Tuesday evening beer pong session.

The top two got quite close to going sub 9 minutes. In second place and I apologise in advance, was Daniel Cain of GTR. He came home from a holiday in the Bahamas & Florida on time. He caned it, showed he was Cain and Abel to the task and blew more than just the bloody doors off to finish in 09:11. In first place and having a change up from riding around Fife Cycle Park quite quickly was Ciaran McSherry. Ciaran beat Daniel Cain by a cane’s width (sorry) with a time of 09:09.

And so finishes our first 5M, sort of, TT. It’s a Yak HC again next week, pray for non-monsoon conditions! I’ll also be posting about the series ending gathering as I have had the green light from the committee. Wahey.

Thanks again to our volunteers – a strong Ronde contingent of Louis Moorehead & Fiona McDonnell timekeeping. Adam Brennan for signs and marshalling. Gerry McGuire for start area duty and Rory Downie for rather than beating the rest of field to a pulp, kindly was on holder-upper duty this week.


Week 12 Results

Thanks again

Go well

Dan