As it was, I was really pleased with my setup. Bike was ace. Love having full suspension V riding similar stuff on the gravel bike. The freshly serviced shock worked well.
I used the lockout here and there (even if I don’t think it actually saves any watts) and the Rocket Ron’s tubeless at some unknown psi (couldn’t be arsed to check them but they looked ‘reet
) were brill. The course itself was not my cup of tea. It was either terrifying chalk ruts going down, draggy climbs that punish my weight going up or headwinds! My rut-riding did improve but as when I used to off road on my XT660z, I refuse to believe it’s anything other than luck whether you get thrown into a wobble and wipe out by scraping the deep edge of the rut with the front. Not helped by seeing someone do just that!
I ate double breakfast before I left home, then had two glasses of OJ at the event just before the start. Then I had two 550ml bottles in my jersey pockets with 100g of table sugar in each one and a 750ml in the cage with plain water. I also had the 20 minute drink alarm set on my Garmin and made sure I had around 1/3 of a sugary bottle each time. I used maybe half of the plain water on my arms and legs and drunk the rest.
It’s almost impossible not to start mass-start events too fast but I tried to at least reign it in on the climbs. Seeing Weeksy up in front and pulling away when I was doing 330w was a clear sign of adrenaline
The first little while was the flattest of the event and I was on 250w/16mph average at one point!! It’s insane that the winnner held a slightly faster pace than that for the entire ride.
It took 2h48 and I think I ended up about 13/200 + still felt strong going home with a tailwind.
The event was about 257np and around 207 average. Total for the day was 4h46 and over 3000kcals.
It was a nice change to be using some fitness rather than just building it.
