Twinkly Dave – Mud splattered bicycle and pizza enthusiast Growing old disgracefully

I had in my head the idea, on saturday morning, or remembering one important thing that happened on each of my laps of the CLIC course. I was doing well until about lap 15, when i realised i couldn’t remember the previous 14 laps…somewhat unsupirisingly my memory (and ability to think in general) got worse as the event went on, all i’m left with is this:
Lap 1: Oooh, this course is fun
Lap 2: Guy shoots past me, but then stops at the end of the lap

Lap 4: Stop to tighten headset before the last descent, Simon rides past and checks I’m ok
Lap 5: Horses on the course, one takes a dislike to me and calmly turns around and wanders off in to the undergrowth, despite protests by its rider
Lap 6: Puncture

Lap 8: My legs hurt, my arse hurts, my arms hurt, I stop at the end of the lap to eat something, clean and relube the chain, refill camelback and bottles, grab some more energy bars to eat while riding, pack a new spare tube and fit lights – i keep forgetting what i’m doing so it takes ages
Lap 10: it’s getting dark now, Simon catches up with me and slows to ride with me while playing with his new u.s.e. exposure lights, i use his light to see by to conserve my battery
Lap 11: My computer dies, steve catches up with me and gives me a hand untangling my camelback tube, with has got so tangled up inside the bag i can’t get anything out of it
Lap 12: Uuugh, this is horrible, my legs don’t hurt as much anymore, but i feel sick, i can’t think properly, i have no power, i can’t see using just the helmet mounted vistalite but don’t want to run the X6’s on full power so i bounce all over the track, how i dn’t get a puncture or crash is beyond me
Lap 13: See lap 12, then multiply it. I slow down and start to use 1st gear on the steeper little climbs
Lap 14: I suddenly feel lots better, i manage to speed up again and start hitting my lines, excellent

Lap 16: I think i stopped briefly after this lap to get some more water and a replacement battery for the vistalite
Lap 17: I think it started getting light again, which felt great
Lap 18: someone in a welsh cycling kit rides past on the first climb, he has “in” written on the rear of his shorts, i spent the next 20 minutes or so wondering why having stuff written on your arse is becoming so popular and what i would have written on mine if i was to do the same…i decide on cake or death…it was highly amusing to me at the time. I crash for the first time while riding up a hill. I then fall asleep whilst riding and am only woekn up by some bloke shouting as he rides past…i stop and make the fatal mistake of lying down in my tent, i fall asleep for just under an hour
Lap 19: I wake up, realise how stupid it was of me to doze off and do a 45minute lap to make myself feel better. I decide i can get 2 more laps in, possibly 3 if i finish the 2nd before 10:45
Lap 20: I meet Guy at the end of the lap and he lets me sit on his wheel along the run in to the arena – thankyou Guy for reminding me!
Lap 21: I finish the lap at 10:55 and decide i don’t have a 1hr 5min lap in me as i’m feeling a bit sick and have run out of drink again

And that’s it, I imagine i’ve got when everythign happened all wrong, but it went something like that.
My legs hurt more on the first 8laps than they did for the following 13, in fact i felt better towards then end that i did at the start muscle wise, the only thing that seemed to cause me any problems was that my stomach was in turmoil (oh, and the fact ithat i fell asleep!).
This all bodes quite well for SSMM…
Oh, I came 3rd, so big up to Ian corfe who did 23laps and Dave Buchanan who did 22laps.

On a different note, i am proud to annouce that this site appears to be the number 1 site for riders mothers to find out what their errant offspring are up to! So hello to my mum, angela’s mum, rich’s mum, guy’s mum and any other mums out there!