The View From Here - a blog

01/07/2024 - Virtually enjoyable

Third time lucky, right? Fellow tandem racer, +RichardM and I had had two time trials with late course changes in the early season already. Both made these fast courses, well, not fast, so we decided to give them a miss. Getting up early and driving to a village hall for a slow course didn’t feel appealing,

But the H25/8 course at Bentley was fast. The tandem course record of 48:42 for the 25 miles held by Elliott and Greenstreet was not to be sniffed at. This race was being run by Farnham and Camberley CC. The HQ was at the Memorial Hall in Bentley, one stop down the line from Farnham rail station. We were driving there and were in good time. I like to work backwards from the start time (10.38) and set a schedule with loads of wiggle room:

6:00 Alarm
7:00 Leave
7:30 Pick up Richard
8:30 Arrive, sign on, toilet, dress
9:00 Set up bike on turbo
9:20 Start 20 min turbo warm up
9:50 Put turbo away
10:15 Ride to start (it takes 15 min according to the organisers)
10:38 Race

The weather forecast was not great, there were light showers predicted sometime that morning, but nothing that looked disastrous. About 10 minutes from Bentley, it stared raining. Heavily. We arrived and it kept going cats and dogs. I looked at my trusty rain radar app, Rain Today and it was set to stop in 20 mins and then stay dry. I tried to stay positive.

Memorial Hall

We had arrived as the HQ opened, even though we would be the last off. One of the marshals asked who I was. When I said my name, he said “Hutchison?” Could he have mistaken me for the Northern Irish time trial legend and writer Micheal Hutchison? Little did I know, this was as exciting as the morning would get. We signed in. It kept raining.

Sign on/sign off

Richard look pissed off. “I’m calling it,” he said. “What? The rain is going to stop!” “Yes, but look outside…” There were huge puddles everywhere. “This is not going to dry out.” I could see his point. The spray would be considerable and, on a dual carriageway, trying to go around the standing water with fast-moving vehicles would be risky. I agreed. Steering a tandem is quite a challenge at the best of times and on a slippery surface with poor visibility was far from that.

Wet, wet, wet

With a profound sigh, I went over to the refreshment table which was loaded with cakes and sandwiches and picked myself out a mini chocolate doughnut. I had to have something for my entry fee. Oddly on the drive back we got to talking about bike racing. It must have been the wet weather, because the specific subject was virtual racing on a tandem. How to set it up and was anyone staging races. Of course, our combined power would equal a pro racer (or maybe just better than a pro), but our weight might be treble a pro's! Maybe we could do some race simulation on time trial courses on the Tacx app or FulGaz. We even considered the merits and options of virtual racing on Zwift, which neither of us are big fans of. That's saying something.

A good-looking spread

I was home hours before I’m planned with virtual cycling on my mind, so I downloaded the Tour de Romandie 2019 time trial course on the FulGaz app and gave it a bash on the turbo trainer. I aimed for a proper race effort and the data backed that up. I put in my best 20 min power for 2024. An upgrade. This bodes well, as in three weeks' time we are set to race on the rapid F11/10 course. Fourth time lucky?