The dreaded TT bike!

Today's session was a crit session;

30mins easy warmup
30mins HARD time trial
30mins easy cool down.

Now, Craig picked up his sexy Ridley Dean TT bike last Friday, so this was to be it's debut.  Craig was rearing to go and I was wondering if it was going to make a huge difference to his speed.

Well, the question was answered!  We started the TT and I was in front waiting to be passed by either Craig or Richard, however it took half a lap or so for Craig to come around me and I immediately pounced on his rear wheel.  I was working HARD to stay on to him.  There were a few moments through the corners where I moved off his wheel and I could feel the extra resistance, so I sunk back behind his wheel again.  I managed to stay like this for a couple of laps before I started to get a bit cocky and I moved out from behind his wheel to see if I could overtake on the straight.  This was not a good move!  There was a headwind and it was as if I had let a wrapper out of the car window - I just flew backwards!  I took it up a notch to try and get back onto his wheel, but after half a lap of trying I had to throw up the white flag and settle into something that would get me through 30 minutes without passing out!

I settled into a good rhythm of hard cycling when Rich overtook me as though I was standing still, so I put in another gut busting effort and managed to get onto his back wheel.  Once again, my heart was thumping!  I even managed to get in front of Richard a couple of times for some very brief moments before he regained the lead.  I think this ensured that we both worked hard! 

After the 30minutes I had cycled 18.28km's.  36.5kms/hour is not too shabby for me!  This is slightly quicker than the last time I did a 30min TT and thankfully Craig's was about 2kms/hour quicker than his last time trial so it shows that I had reason to be bursting my lungs trying to stick with him and it also demonstrates the advantages of a TT bike!  I can understand the benefits, however I am not ready for a TT bike when I don't even really like getting down on my aero bars.

Craig is in love...  I'm not sure I am still number one!