Race results

British Time Trial Championships - Botolph Claydon

06 September 2009
Time Trial

Just about anyone who is anyone in the world of time triailling was at the Botolph Claydon circuit for this one. It was a star-studded field with fast men and women attracted from all over the country to do battle over two or three laps of the rolling circuit. I was there too.

The BTTC is a joint BC and CTT promotion with CTT being the poor relation in the partnership. That meant it was run under UCI rules and there was a smattering of very exotic wheels on show. But the dead hand of the UCI was also there wielding its special tape measure and there was a lot of spannerwork and gaffer taping going on to get bikes to comply with the ideas of the men in blazers.
Thankfully, my category, The Masters, was exempt from all that and we got on with things just like a normal TT.

For me that meant knocking out a 52, wishing I’d known the circuit just a little better and comparing times with familiar faces from more familiar courses. Those comparisons had me trying to work out where I should have found about a minute though my heart rate download later told me it wasn’t out there to be had. In any case it was still better than looking at things like the Espoirs times, where Alex Dowsett covered the same distance some 10 minutes quicker than me!

I was fourth in my age group but it’s getting to that time of life when you are rewarded for surviving and having the cheek to be there at all – fifth was a DNF, sixth was a DNS, and er…. that was it.
The crowds that hung around all day were rewarded with wins from the very big names. Bradley Wiggins, riding for Garmin, was well clear of Hutchinson. And Emma Pooley, riding for Cervelo Test Team, was equally dominant in the best women’s field I think I’ve ever seen. Matt Botrill got over excited by the sight of Wiggins, fresh from 4th in the Tour, coming past and wheelsucked him all the way to his eventual disqualification.

The BTTC was a masterpiece of organisation by Ian Stokes of North Bucks RC. You can tell it was good because some on the CTT Forum have been moaning about it ever since !
All the helpers, including Vince Freeley – assistant timekeeper and pusher off at the start, can pat themselves on the back for this one.