The Heavy Tandem goes Italian.
With John's bike out of action, he has the use of Elton's race tandem, a handsome Pinarello, which he bought from a forum member.
We have both been off the bike for a while for various issues.
Our pre-race admin was poor, including driving the wrong way despite the fact that I knew the way perfectly well.
In the end there was no warm up, and I even had to adjust my saddle height on the line. However we were at least there and riding.
Surprisingly despite pleasant (if a little windy) weather, and a non-threatening course there were relatively few starters. ABC grades were combined for the start with only 3 in A grade, 8 in B grade, and 3 in C grade. D grade was better but still with only 7 including Elton and Don on Elton's other tandem.
The course is an out and back in both directions from the central start/finish. The southern side is reasonably favourable which is a long gradual climb and return. The northern side is more lumpy and ends in a drop down to the turn at the lowest point of the course. Although the faster riders did two full laps, E,F and G grades only did a lap and a half and naturally we would only ride the favourable part of the course once and the less favourable part twice.
At the start we went to the front and from there we would drift back on the hills, and forward again over the top. Up the last climb before the descent to the turn the bunch broke apart with us off the back. There was never any doubt that we'd catch and pass the others on the descent so I'm surprised no-one hung back to get firmly planted in our slipstream.
We did discover a brake issue at the turn which caused us to overshoot whilst we slowed sufficiently to make the turn. This gave up a lot of our lead. On the return climb all the others came past and then the chase began. The others formed into a group of Angie Kev and Andrew, followed by the pair of Lee and Malcolm and then us. After a long chase, we finally caught and passed the pair of Lee and Malcolm right at the end of the first lap. Shortly afterwards we caught Andrew, and we rode in the vicinity of each other for a while without working, since we couldn't hold his wheel uphill. He made a good effort to hold our wheel most of the way down the big hill to the turn and was able to close up to us under brakes, which worked better this time but still not satisfactory. I've since adjusted the brakes properly.
Andrew came past us soon afterwards and we would neither catch nor get caught by anyone else for the rest of the race.
Did manage to get a lot of video of mostly empty roads behind us. Here are some highlights.
Cheers,
Cameron