Brompton World Championship
104 days out of date, but as I said life has been busy.
On the 28th of September 2008 I entered the third Brompton World Championship Race, which was held for the first time in the UK at Blenheim Palace. As the Brompton bike is generally a commuter bike the race had the dress requirements of collared shirt, tie and jacket and that no sports trousers/shorts be worn. So for my outfit I bought the cheapest suit from a charity shop that fitted me and didn’t look dire, then cut the trousers to be ¾ length and put in a basic hem.
The race course was a mere 13.6km by completing two laps with a total ascent of 236m.
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The start of the race was done in groups, due to there being about 400 competitors, and done in a le mons style start: run to your folded bike, unfold, go! As readers of engtect know, I am quick at unfolding my bike, however I am sorry to say that after that I was no longer quick. Lots of old guys (say about 40+) were speeding past me. Clearly they are die hard commuters and die harder leisure cyclists. I now suppose a quirky folding bike would pick eccentrics and the race would appeal to the sporty ones amongst them, whereas when I entered I figured all the other competitors would be out of shape professionals with not much time for exercise.
The “mere 13.6km” course I realised, about 5 minutes into it, was actually a gruelling sprint wearing utterly inappropriate clothing. It almost killed me.
Thankfully I finished with a time of 27mins 18sec, albeit in position 105 out of 364, and earned my bag of goodies including a nice (organic) t-shirt. Thanks Brompton for an ace day, hope to be in the next one and to do better.
Links
next year, actually this year, I hope to watch this bizarre event!