The Speigths Coast to Coast
A C2C Win At Last
Elina Ussher / 18.02.2010
What made it harder to comprehend was that we were basking in a glorious West Coast day and all the locals were saying the rain definitely wouldn’t be arriving. So even though we made plans to change everything I was still thinking maybe it was all a big hoax.
In the mean time Richard had sawed my rudder in half with a Leatherman and shaped it using the asphalt as a file – to try and avoid some of the weed notorious for collecting on rudders in the Avon River and we set about changing nutrition plans and strategies.
The next morning at 3am I woke up to the sound of torrential rain thundering down on the roof and immediately had second thoughts about using my Time Trial bike in the first ride. Luckily it didn’t take too many elbows to wake Richard up and send him out to swap everything over to the road bike to make the first ride a bit safer in the first bunch ride.
At 4:30am we set off for the start and the rain was so heavy that at times it was hard to see out the front window and added to that the wind was threatening to blow the kayaks off the car roof.
It wasn’t too cold but with so much rain and wind I was sent to the start bundled up in a ridiculous amount of clothes, but once down at the beach and sheltering from the elements behind a row of port-a-loos I was pretty happy to have the warm gear.
Judkins gave a short race briefing which I couldn’t hear over the flap of rubbish bags (that people were wearing prior to the race in an effort to stay dry) and the fact the rain seemed to be affecting the microphone rather badly.
After the briefing it was literally 1, 2, 3 GO! And we were off.
My plan was to have a good run and to be in the first bunch for the opening ride and after the initial sprint had stopped I was able to move slowly up the field in the 3km heading to the bikes.
Luckily I found my bike with no problem this time and set off in the draft of some guy giving it the full beans. He hammered it for about 20 mins as we just missed the fastest guys breaking away off the front and as our pace slowed slightly a bunch slowly formed around us – first mission accomplished, in a good bunch.
The rest of the ride was pretty scary with so much rain that at times it was hard to see, especially in the darkness at the beginning. The bunch was really good though with everyone taking extra care not to cause an accident. The pace as usual was up and down but eventually we got to the transition and the chaos started all over again.
SleepMonsters
