Hello again and welcome to part 4, the final piece on our highly successful 2022 club 10 TT series before we start changing view towards the upcoming season.
Let's quickly have a recap of what we have looked at in our previous posts.
We have started with the winners and runners up of the Scorton Green TT Challenge. That's the name of our handicap points series, and you read more about it in the Time Trials section on our website darlingtoncyclingclub.co.uk.
In part 2 we went on to shine a light on some outstanding comebacks...
... followed by the spotlight on some impressively consistent performances in part 3.
You might wonder, what else there is to write about?!? Well, the theme of all previous posts was PERFORMANCE. There is more to Time Trials than athlete performance and the purpose of this post is to reflect on some of those other perspectives.
Let's start near the end, because that's one of the authors favourites. It’s the gathering for a chat once you caught back your breath after the work is done and you anxiously wait for Geoff (our time keeper) to return with the hard facts (your official finish time). Quite often this chat continues at the nearby Chequers-Inn in Dalton-on-Tees.
Rewind, let's go in order and start at the beginning. You need to get signed on. What number are you going to get? Who starts in front of you? Who will be behind?
Next you got to line up and wait for your start time, hopefully well warmed up and ready to go. It's that final moment of quiet and focus to try get in the zone. But be warned to not miss your allocated time slot. Geoff has no mercy, and late arrivals will get a time penalty no matter who they are ;) The author had to make this experience once and is now working hard to avoid it happening again in future. (It's not the end of the world, but obviously doesn't help with your result.) So be on time.
Next it's obviously the time trial itself, in which you ride as hard and as fast as you can to finish the 10 mile course. That's it, it's extremely simple...
Well, maybe not quite, because pacing it right takes a lot of practice and even the most experienced and strongest athletes need to keep training it over and over. It is a relentless pursuit of perfection time and time again. The challenge is to have nothing left the moment you cross the line, but not "blow up" early. But that's also the beauty of it. It's just you against the clock, and perhaps yourself from last week. You alone are in control, from start to finish. It's fun and extremely addictive.
The route leads out towards Scorton and as you head around the village green you will see our marshals (side note: during the event they will of course indicate your direction instead of posing for a photo). And quite often last year, the girls from Team Zurbaran came along for support.
In terms of overall attendance numbers, we have had a record year looking back all the way to 2011: most entries overall, most guest entries, most DCC member entries, 2nd most number of events and an impressive ZERO cancellations. It's an achievement to be proud of, and it was made possible by all of you who came along to either ride or help out and of course the organising team who were there week after week.
One of the very best of those 22 Wednesday evenings was when we had 8 club members come along to take part, several of whom to do their very first TT. Kudos to each of you!
So there you are. That was the DCC club 10 evening series for 2022.
What better way could there have been to break up the week?
Bring on the 2023 season!
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