problem after problem!

Yesterday i set out to Dunboyne with the sun shining and a good days work behind me. It really went downhill from there!

The trip out to the race in Meath was perfect. I rode alone and got there in about 45mins. The race was a bit delayed so it involved sitting around for about 30mins which wasnt too bad as the sun was really shinning now and was quite warm. 

The C vets and Juniors had a 3 min lead and the B’s and A’s headed off together the attackes started reasonably early but it wasnt tough going really. One group finally got a good gap and a few lads kept bridging accross. This is where i dropped my only water bottle of the day. I did one small attempt to bridge accross but afterwards my mouth was dry as the sahara so i decided to sit in a pick up my bottle off the roadside on 2nd lap of 3. When i stopped and got it it was smashed to pieces by a car so i bridged through the cars (much tot the help of Gay Howard) and sat back in the bunch thirsty and thus hungry as i couldnt eat a gel or bar without water. This lasted for 90mins and at this stage i was just waiting for the race to end. 

With nothing to race for and i could focus more of my attention on the noise coming from my rear wheel. It was a noise i hadnt heard before and sounded like a mixture of a whirring, a rattle and a grinding? I soon realised that my cassette had actually come loose and was shaking about. Looking back on it i should have stopped to avoid further damage but with my recent run of DNFs i had to plough on. When i stopped at the finish line and took out the wheel the cassette actually just fell apart. Lucky i did stop so! I was delighted that one of the cars had a cassette tool and i tightened it up but the noise still continued on way home. If i just leave it alone maybe it wont get any worse…???

Couldnt download the powerfiles as my PC decided to stop working! but the race was 90mins with avg power of 230 (i think)? so pretty tame.

For the day i did 5h with another effort of 60mins at 240 on way home so pretty hard going. My aim of racing on wednesday too ended when i only got in at 1045pm. 

 

A quick pick from Howth Summit

 

 

One hour up Howth this morn and the club race tomorrow should make for a good testing week.