End of the Race Season

I haven't written a blog for a long time. Things have been super busy at home with Laura being ill, work, Oli starting school and the arrival of Sophie our new baby daughter, so I haven't really had the time. I've still managed to fit in a bit of racing though. The first half of the season I guess I focused mainly on road racing as most of the best races are held in April May and June. Scottish road racing seems to take a break in July, and then August, September and October don't have much to offer in the way of serious road races. There are however plenty of time trials on, so in the second half of the season for the last 2 years I've done mainly TT after July.

This season its worked out that my TTing has been more successful than RRing and I've had several good results in the last couple of months including a few wins (pic shows win at the Dooleys Memorial 25) and second places in the Tour of the Trossachs and Tour of the Campsies TT. These are pretty special races in the Scottish calendar with a long history and challenging hilly courses. The Trossachs is a pretty big event and the competition was tough so I am pretty pleased with my result as I was only 11seconds away from winning.
As well as this I think I've managed to win the Scottish Middle distance BAR competition albeit by a very narrow margin. The BAR - best all rounder - is a season long competition where you take the best times at fixed distances and the rider with the speed for these events wins. The Middle distance comp covers the 25, 50, and 100 mile events. I managed to put together an average of just under 27mph for these there events which is hopefully just enough to take the win which I'm really Jean to get!

The only event left to race is the Scottish hill climb in a couple of weeks time. I think I'm in pretty good shape for that event as I'm climbing well at the moment, despite having put on a bit of weight over the season. In some ways it'll be nice to be finished racing for the year and be able to do some more relaxed sociable riding but it also always seems a shame when the racing stops and it doesn't take long before everyone starts thinking about how good next season will be and the reliability trials at the start of the year!
Robin Wilkins