Following our success in March in the Hull Thursday RC 2 up 24, myself and super espoir Jon Wears decided to see how quick we could go over 10 miles as a team.

The perfect choice was the relatively local Bolsover event held in the single carruageway A60 course at Cucknet near Worksop.

With Jon Wears currently on top form with no less than 6 sub 50 minute rides over 25 miles, it was always going to be a tough race for me but training has been going well  and my new Giant Trinity Advanced Time Trial bike courtesy of our sponsors SSLL, dialled in, I was looking forward to this event immensely.

So the day arrived and while others were getting a soaking in flood conditions elsewhere, we were blessed with warm sunshine and a crosswind breeze.

Off last of 30 teams, we were pre race favourites but took nothing for granted as several other teams were quality outfits including former team mates Robbie Krygsman and Rich Dean of Team Swift and Ian Guillor and Sean Eden from Mapperley CC.

So following a good focused warm up on our turbos , a fuel top up courtesy of OTE , off we went to the start. The start of this course is halfway down a fairly steep climb and so we were up to 40 plus mph within seconds. My new 58 tooth chainring courtesy of Fibrelyte was running perfectly and all was well. Jon Wears came through super smooth to lead us out of the first village which we flew through courtesy of the excellent marshals stopping traffic from pulling out on  us. He was flying and although comfortable on his wheel, it was a while before I could come through to take a turn. However it didn’t matter to Jon as he turned 56 x 11 with ease.

30 plus mph avg after 5 minutes of racing and all was looking good, but then just ahead we saw a problem. A traffic jam had been caused by a Range Rover trying to turn right across the road into a market!! We had to slow and then freewheel dropping from 30 mph to 14 as we somehow squeezed past. Obstruction clear but it took another 40 seconds to get back up to race speed – gutted!

Undeterred we cracked on and still hit the long slow turn in 10 minutes still an average of 30 mph. I ploughed a route through the traffic at the turn and got us back up to 31 mph before Jon was once again pushing the pace upwards on the front . We seemed to be getting faster and very soon the finish line (thankfully before the start hill!) was ahead. A strong sprint at 35 mph and we crossed the line side by side in 20:20 for an average speed of 29.6 mph. Was it enough to win? We were hopeful. However on arriving back at the HQ, we were greeted by the Team Bottrills who gave us the bad news that Guillor and Eden had beaten us by 6 seconds and the Swifts by 1 measly second. Both of us were disappointed but happy that we had tried our hardest.

On returning home I analysed all data and it was clear that with the delay and the huge scrub off of speed that several seconds had been lost and a likely win with it. This is however part of racing on open roads and thats that.

For me I was happy that I could hold a the flying Jons, 24 yrs my junior, wheel . He is really proving to be a superstar and long may it continue.

as usual a big thanks to the SSLL Chiefs Simon Fearnley and Keith Davey for providing us with the best in frames, nutrition and coaching from Giant , OTE and our  Coaches Gary Kristenson and Adam Hardy .