The Richmond
event organisers pride themselves on producing a ‘challenging’ bike course and
their efforts are not disappointing. On a couple of sections at least,
cliff-face rather than hill would be a perfectly reasonable description. On
these sections, Steve found the bottom gear of 34 x 25 on his very lightweight
race bike only just enough to grind out upward progress - and that was out of
the saddle. Even the smaller hills were brutal and Steve’s race-face pic (taken
at the top of one of them) belies the efforts involved.
The Coventry Sprint Tri, though still throwing up a few
hills and technical challenges, was a far more even-paced affair leading to far
less facial wear-and-tear.
Steve showed well in both events, comfortably taking 55-59 age group wins and 10/126
and 5/198 overall placings respectively.