BUCS 50km Team Time Trial

Or was it man versus machine? Time? The elements? Or (in one case) a car windscreen? A race report by Matt Lawes.

The day began with the metronomic precision of a city coming back to work after an Easter holiday; except this was a Saturday and cycling was firmly on the agenda.

9am sharp, members gathered workman-like and earnest beneath the union building and loaded their cleated steads into Shane “If it's not off-road it doesn't count” Ashby's People carrier.

He was joined by Elliot “Golden Tyres” Lawrence and Matt “Euro” Lawes; together making up Team Caffeine, and Andrew “Aero Helmet” Bean, who along with Chis “Presidential” Potter and Amaran “Course Recon” Uthayakumar-Cumarasamy (who made their way separately to the course) together making up team “Yes this is Philip Hines”.

With a good drive from Norwich to Buckingham completed thanks to Shane's internal Navigation System the teams arrived, with hours to spare, at race HQ.

Immediately there were calls from the team members to see first-hand the details and nuances of the winding slick of asphalt that would play host to two laps of screaming-pain that would take those astride 50 km closer to hell than is wise to be.

The course was all that Amaran had reported via email; containing one long back-straight with the start and finish. A steep hill followed by potted and scarred back roads dinking left and feinting right every thirty seconds. Tight 90 degree corners lead onto savage descents that twirled their way back to the start straight.

After signing-in, collecting numbers and rather gingerly pinning them onto each other's lycra shorts the teams warmed up on turbos and then made there way to the start line.

Perspective of Team Caffeine

With Shane leading it steady out of the blocks the three-up time trial had begun. Riding hard and at around 25mph Matt and Elliot nestled and squeezed tyre-to-tyre, as Shane blasted his way through the cold dense air.

Changes to the leader happened smoothly and quickly every minute with the second rider leading the third rider in overtaking the first on the right-hand side. Quickly, from the start point, Team Caffeine turned onto the back finishing straight – bang into a head-wind and the first throbs of real lactate.

As the finish whizzed by, the adrenaline receded unmasking the uncertainness of what was to come before it was seen again. The pummeling head-wind of the straight buffeted and rebounded the surging efforts made by each leader on his turn.

Suddenly the monotony of the straight and the howl of the wind was broken by the thwmp…thwmp…thwmp from behind just as we approached the end – Oxford men's first team were cutting through the air behind us!

Three Dark Blue shapes nipped in front of us, bodies moulded to there carbon beasts, legs pulsating. Turning left off the straight and onto the only real hill of the course just behind Oxford one team member (who shall remain nameless due to the profanity he unloaded) did not like this. At. All.

Seemingly powered by his own foul utterances, said rider bridged the gap Oxford had made over our brave UEA poursuivants, and was about to blaze past them screaming “C*nts” before attempting to knock them all off their bikes, when the wise heads of the other team-members called up to him to come back and stick together up the hill.

At the top of the hill Oxford pulled away on the flat only to justly puncture and allow UEA to come past. The winding pot-hole-ridden hairpins of the course came next – which Team Caffeine duly dispatched with aplomb.

Thursday nighttime rides famed for their brutality – in speed, coldness and blinding dark, had been the ideal training for Team Caffeine for this technical terrain; with them dispatching teams who had spent far more money on their bikes and far more time indoors on turbo trainers.

Elliot “Golden Wheels” Lawrence in particular danced his way through the lower orders of slower teams. Out of the technical phase and now for the descents. The blurring of the landscape highlighted the number 60 displayed on the Garmin.

Tucking in tight and following the big engines, Golden Wheels pushed so hard his crank started to creak and his chain flew off! The speed and power must have surely done something to his bike because within the next few minutes Elliot's tyre punctured!

With the team grinding to a halt and the race-plan in disarray, it was decided that the two remaining riders should carry on – as no spare tubes had be brought. The Garmin clocked multiple minutes lost, things looked bleak.

Back on the front of the now two-up time-trial, Shane had other ideas. With legs renewed from the stop and the mind now focused and gritted on the heightened challenge, using all his mountain-biking skill, this Meister of the flats showed us all why some bikes are called “time-machines”. Ripping through the course swapping every thirty seconds with Lawes the remains of Team Caffeine overdosed on pain, but maintained (thereabouts) their previous speed.

Onto the second lap, the two-man-time-trial-typhoon whipped along and managed to catch Team Phil (who having started half an hour later were on there first lap), only to discover they too where down to two men! The punishment pounded on until the hour mark when swooping round a 100 degree bend Caffeine were suddenly halted by the flashing lights of an ambulance blocking the road.

Driving left the team scuttled through the luminescent vehicles. The remains of a Cervélo fragmented on the roadside, a car's wind-shield caved in. One of the geared-up teams had taken the corner too fast, exited into the lane of on-coming traffic and gone straight into a car. We swallowed our rising dread and hoped for their safety.

Zipping along now in the final act of the race, over a particularly knotted and gnarled road surface, the shocks and vibrations through Shane's front forks proved too much for his handle bars and wheels and something “pulled”.

With Shane's speed suffering and distance still to cover, Lawes moved to the front and made a go of it. Blackness ensued when crossing the line and Lawes passed out.

But it was a Result. An epic time for a two-up time-trial. Not quite so epic time for a three-up though. Oh well, watch this space.

Written by Matt 'Euros' Lawes