A wrong turning.
The Oxonian 25 mile time trial at the weekend, turned into a 26.5 mile time trial. It was a course I hadn’t ridden before and got mixed up with another version of the course which uses the same roads but turns at a different roundabout. As I flew through the roundabout (instead of turning) I heard a few marshals shout my name. Now, it is unlikely they were cheering so enthusiastically I thought they might be calling back. I should have stopped and turned round. But, when you are on a dual carriageway, you just keep going . When the dual carriageway section finally ended I turned round and came back. Even then I was worried I might be cheating cutting a big corner out of the race.
I wasn’t looking at a speedometer only the time on my bike. For some reason it becomes very difficult to do simple calculations when racing. I started at 3.45pm, If it’s 4.35 now, when should I have finished 25 miles? I made a big mistake in buying a speedometer with only 5 functions. I bought this wireless Cateye Vectra 5 function, assuming it would have a timer, but it doesn’t – only distance, max speed and some other useless things.
It’s not the first time I went off course, a few years ago, I took a much more exciting detour via Bicester. It was one of those roundabouts, with a hundred exits. You go 320 degrees and take the fourth turning, thinking you have gone 360 degrees and taken the fifth turning. It is actually quite easy to do, and in that race I wasn’t the only one to take that wrong turning. I was the only one, however who went the wrong way for 8 miles but still finished. I ended up doing a 35 mile time trial and is the only time I’ve come last in a race. (apart from when I reluctantly did cross country at school – I’ll never forget coming last in one race)
This year’s self-imposed handicap left me finishing fifth, when I probably would have won if I hadn’t been creating my own course. My next cycle computer will be a gps with a nice lady speaking at me as I go along ‘ - at the next roundabout take third exit…’ ‘recalculating…’ ‘at the next roundabout turn around...’
But, then if in football you score a few own goals, you can’t complain if you don’t win.
Well, you could look at the race as training, and it’s best always to go that extra mile in training
It wasn’t at all clear to me from the course description where the finish was, I asked a passing Oxonian and worked it out before I started. I wish all TT courses had a map and/or enormous signs.
Schadenfreude!!!!
very amusing, I’m ashamed to say
i rode at the weekend in a hardriders event, didn’t see a single other rider for what seemed like ages and began to think i’d gone of course. i didn’t – although you wouldn’t have known it from my time.