Over the Hill.

As was pointed out by Kaybee yesterday, my Blip postings are still trailing reality by over a week and I am only catching up slowly as I'm publishing more often than I am picking up a camera.
This week-end is the annual 24 hour cycle race and, being unable to ride these days, I help with the time-keeping and recording. My prowess with watch and pen mean that the organiser has threatened to refuse my entry if I submit one next year; or perhaps it’s just that he’s desperate for officials – particularly in the hours between midnight and breakfast. It actually worked out very well as I was able to keep track of how the individual riders were doing. When I started, it was apparent that three women were heading towards setting a new record, the old one was set in 1993 at 461 miles; two men were heading the same way with their target having been set at 541 miles in 2011 and the men’s tandem record set in 1991 at 501 miles was likely to be beaten by an enormous 30 miles.
However, there’s many a slip – as the saying goes; rather confused news soon came through that the leading man had retired: it seems that he rode into the back of a parked car. The good news was that he wasn’t badly hurt although he was taken to hospital as a precaution, and the car he crashed into was part of the race but was still driveable so was used to get him to hospital. The bad news was that his bike had been reduced to a very expensive piece of scrap and he faces a near certain 6 month ban from racing. The authorities do get upset over riders not looking where they are going. Finally, the tandem stoker (the one on the back) was sick at about 20 hours and unable to continue - though I do hope he can sort out his problems and return next year.
The remaining man and three ladies duly delivered the records, though I expect that only one lady will be credited; I’m not too sure how the rules work for these events as it is so rare for this to happen.
It has to be said that there wasn’t any weather which made for ideal conditions: the riders do not want it to be sunny, hot, cold, wet or windy though the little breeze that did get up in the last few hours was a helpful tail wind to the finish.
All in all, it was an exciting week-end, though I’ve probably bored the pants off my reader.
 
The blip is of Reuben Morgan (who didn’t finish), and the extras are of Lynne Biddulph (who spent many years chasing the ladies’ record until she married and unaccountably found more interesting things to do with her time), the tandem pairing of the Ponting brothers (who failed to finish) and Philip Wade (who I thought should invest in a diet plan rather than spend a lot of money on a light-weight bike – though he did end up with a very creditable 424 miles). The one disappointment was that I failed to get a decent picture of the fast tandem.