Coast2Coast & The Tenby Aces Reliability Series (Round 1)A cold wet and windy start to Sunday morning brought the news via text at 7am that Mr Edwardakis was not up for the planned 40 miler from Tenby to Castlemartin and back. `Tough I'm en-route` was my short reply.
After a quick cuppa at Andy's we set off towards Tenby Leisure Centre at about mach 1. Halfway through the journey as the Yaris blasted its way through the countryside a Buzzard flew out in front of the car.. "whooa I think we got it" I said..looking back to see if 6 foot of feathered thing was jammed in the bikes on the rear rack. The big man was calmness personified, " it's an omen, I must ride like a bird of prey on the wing today...no one can stop me...I'll destroy the Tenby peleton".
After a quick change in the car park we set off at a fairly brisk pace where we found ourselves in the middle of the pack and pushing hard into a strong head wind towards the coast. After about 45 mins a couple of the front runners suffered punctures and we started slowly to drag ourselves up the order.
At Castlemartin and about an hour or so into our journey we picked up Andrew Millward and the 3 of us made good time to the turn at Freshwater West and started to stretch out in front until we were met at Pembroke by a couple of the others.
The peleton bunches up through the town centre but as we get to the other side, Lance `The Buzzard Slayer` Edwards announces to me that he's "going to blast it for a bit and that we'll all probably catch him on the Ridgeway climb"... We're 2 hrs in and I can see The Slayer's got a plan, he wants to get home inside 3hrs and get into the silver time group...he fancies it you can see it.
As we pass the rugby football club I can see his arse, quite literally (as he has very thin lycra shorts) 200m ahead but I just about manage to stick in view (and keep my energy bar down, the view is not fantastic). As we approach the village of Lamphey he's just out of site but I'm confident of cathcing him still. At this point I feel a slight touch of my rear wheel, Mr Millward is still there...I get out of the saddle and put the hammer down a bit and believe I`m clear.
Entering Lamphey I start to bank right to follow the road through the village when suddenly - `smash!!` and I'm heading for a garden wall, this is not good... I come to a halt having managed to stay upright even though I made contact with the wall and turn to see Mr Millward ` the Father of the peleton on the floor pointing at a junction we had just started to pass muttering `that way`. I'd turned and followed the wrong road and in the process had contact for a second time today with disastrous consequences.
Everybody's up and OK but to my disappointment several spokes in the rear have been snapped and the bike is unrideable. I have no choice but to sit it out and await the return of the chosen one.
45 mins later he turns up beaming and giggling, `do you want to take a photo of me? of the winner? the first person home?`. "I'm sorry about your bike can we go home now, no I don't want to take your photo....". Take a photo of me, take a photo of me... and on it goes... Andy Edwards 1st 2hrs 30 mins.............. Phil Jenkins DNF!
happy collisions
Phil Jenkins
Team Cyclist
http://www.coast2coast-usa.org/
www.myspace.com/coast2coastusa
http://www.justgiving.com/coast2coast-usa
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment