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Mike Rice 11th July - Crawley Whs 10 - G10/57

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12th July - East Sussex 50 - G50/90
Report from Mark Gidney.

Winner Nick Dwyer 1.51.58

Another Sunday, another 4am alarm call, this time to ride the East Sussex
CA 50, fortunately only a 20 min drive over Ashown Forest to the HQ. I
arrived in plenty of time and set the bike up, but what change a day makes,
cold windy and the sky was very overcast. The BBC had been saying rain all
week for Sunday so no surprise. I warmed up by doing a few laps around the
village and arrived at the timekeeper with 3 min to spare, just enough time
to have a quick chat with Mike Kilby, I have lost count of the events he has
time kept at … so I head off south along the A22 and get into a rhythm, a
couple of miles into the ride and all is OK and I am going quite well, past the
giant boot sale (one of 2 on the course), not sure why you would get up at
stupid o'clock on a Sunday morning to go to a boot sale, but then I guess
they are thinking look at those idiots on push bikes with silly pointy hats at
this time on a Sunday morning .. each to their own .. back to the ride. I
arrive at the first turn and then OUCH I now know why I was going so well,
tail wind, next comes 15 miles plugging away into the wind then relief and I
get to the 2nd turn and pick up the tail wind once more, and have a better
leg back to the 3rd turn, thankfully the next leg into the wind is slightly
shorter so its just a case of head down (?) and pedal finally getting to the
4th and final turn to pick up the tail wind for the last 8 miles. Sadly by now
my legs feel as if they have been aneasthetised and no matter how much by
brain says push harder, they fail to respond, less than ½ mile to the finish
and the rain finally puts in an appearance. This is the incentive I need, if I
can get back to the car pronto no need to spend all Sunday afternoon
cleaning my bike, so doing my best Wiggins impression I majestically clip the
last roundabout and pass the timekeeper stopping the watch at a rather
hopeless 2.21.55. The course is 99% single carriageway and contains 31
roundabouts, I only got held up at the 2nd last one, which was a shame as I

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