>Gosh

>After Nicole Cooke, a deluge of starry performances and medals. Congratulations to the whole team – a truly magnificent performance. Double Gold Medallist Bradley Wiggins began his career with my club. There are some photos of a young Bradley in his Archer RC days on the club’s Web site.

Congratulations also to Steve Cummings and Peter Kennaugh for their top road wins in Italy (here and here).

Meanwhile, back at Hillingdon…

I took last weekend off racing to try and refresh myself. This involved 60 miles in the Chilterns on Saturday and hill intervals on Sunday. This set me up nicely for Wednesday’s Westerley CC club ’10’ at the circuit. This became an important race when Gavin Gilbert announced he would ride. This would be the first time I’ve raced against another Archer RC member. Gavin has been on a 12 month training taper for this event and would be primed for a scorching performance.

It wasn’t a scorching night. A strong breeze and cold rain slowed most of the field by 20 seconds from the last time I rode. Roy Brook won in 24:25, Gavin scored a respectable 29:58 and I came second with a season’s best of 24:46… Except that I didn’t. I think they clocked me a lap early (a TT on Hillingdon’s 0.94 mile lap is almost as complicated to run as an Olympic Madison). My computer shows my time at about 27:15 – a little faster than the last time.