Four Firs TT – James Tribble takes Third

After what can only be described as a very environmentally challenging start to the race season in most disciplines, time trialling has been very slow to start and I’m still not into it yet! I’m hoping May will bring better weather and less turbo sessions. While lots of you have been using zwift I have been in my happy place looking at the back of my garage door, focusing on pain and suffering.

The prep for the Four Firs couldn’t have been worse, I’d ridden the course twice that week trying to improve my descending, as I’ve got older my sense of mortality has taken priority. The day before I’d been hit with a migraine something I suffer from very rarely (thank god), I’d finally got out of bed at 7pm and built my bike ready for the mornings shenanigans. The bearings in my disc wheel had seized and I spent what can only be described as a lifetime when you can’t really focus to free them up and get some grease on them, still feeling rough and noisy but good enough to not be a DNS. I arrived at the hq and the weather was as expected, Wet! I’ve ridden it 3 of the last 4 years and it’s never not rained. I’d felt empty and lethargic, most probably due to the fact I’d not eat on Saturday and been in bed for almost 14 hours. But I followed the pacing strategy as planned, backing off on the descents and pushing hard on the climbs. On the final 4 miles down to the finish I saw 2 riders in front, I passed one very quickly and the other just stayed out approx 200 meters in front they were flying, I finally managed to pass them just before the junction and shouted a few words of encouragement to them. Who turned out to be fellow MDCC member Ruth Burrows.

I hadn’t expected a good result so was happy to have placed 3rd and joint team prize with Lee Sanderson and Ruth Burrows.