Red Light

The needle on my fuel gauge was pointing straight toward the dreaded E for 'empty', backed up by the bright red light next to the filler symbol, angrily glowing on my mental dashboard a good few miles before I cleared out my messenger bag on Friday evening. That hasn't happened to me in a while and I'm glad it was kinda dark and gloomy so that I could blend into the background a bit better, hopefully more unnoticed than normal and also thankful that the rest of the crew had put their radios back in the chargers and gone home so that they couldn't track my shamefully slow progress along streets where I'd hooned it only a few hours previously! Plodding toward my last drop in North Cardiff, into a stiff head wind, the overwhelming feeling was not one of pain or sufferance but one of embarrassment!

At least for future reference, I'll know that 2 apples for lunch and half a bottle of coke just doesn't cut it on a busy day. I've always thought of myself as less of a Toyota Prius and more of an American muscle car. There's straight line speed thanks to a big engine and solid drive train, corners can sometimes be a 'close your eyes and hope' affair and after any reasonable distance the wallet has to come out and the energy stores replenished! Further note to self: Don't even think about trying 24hr Solo races.

Back to races. I'm probably going to either the Southern XC at Wasing or the Midlands round on Sunday, I haven't decided for certain yet. I'm still overjoyed with my past few results, so will be hoping to get up near the top at one of the larger, more competitive regional races. Somehow, the Superfly remains intact after BOTB's rather wet race: I have a whole new drive train lined up in my work shop ready for my race machine, but as I'm sure many privateers do, I'm eeking the value out of the existing components until they decided enough's enough!!

Si.