Blog

GBDURO21 - DAY 1.1

14/8/2021

Sitting back with a cider watching our riders make their way into the night and beyond. After the initial rush of blood to the head, proceedings have settled as riders get into their own rhythm and groove.

Delighted to say we still have a full compliment of riders and they’re all still smiling. However, the commissaires have dished out their first time penalties and fines.

For shady ride etiquette, ie. dropping some of her kit to lighten the load hoping another rider would take pity and carry it for her. Jaimi Wilson has been handed a 3 second time penalty on General Classification (GC) and fined a bottle of coke

[Via our race radio WhatsApp group]

For using un-sanctioned equipment that isn’t available to the general public, Liam Yates will be penalised 4.5 seconds on GC and find a pint of Tennents. Looks like he’s rocking those Green Hornet sunnies that I can’t source for love nor money. Although, if you can hook me up with a pair Liam, I’ll turn a blind eye. I’m open to bribes.

At the pointy end, Angus Young looks to have opened a early gap. That warm up on the rollers this morning seems to have don the trick. Newcomer to bunch racing, Mark Beaumont is trailing by roughly 30km at the time of writing, but he’s been pissing about on social media so if he pulls his finger out he may make up some ground.

Not much further back, the leading five lass’s are only separated by 8km give or take. In what I reckon will be an exciting battle all the way to the end. Philippa Battye is currently leading the female charge and is sticking it to the blokes to boot, being comfortably in the top 10, as the 7th rider on the road.

In the pairs, duo Sofie Joore and Tim van Gemert are well up the road and look to be off route to grab some accommodation for the night.

Is Lewis Clark running singlespeed? He’s texted the Race Radio proclaiming “singlespeed suck”. I coulda telt you that mate.

James Illman seems to be greetin’ about the brambles and gorse. Must be a roadie, as comes with the territory. [Edit …. James isn’t riding but writing over at dotwatcher… my bad]

[Photo Credit: Tommycheck]

Tomorrow morning will give us the first indication of the riders tactics for the GBDURO. There will be those who will push on through the night on little or no sleep whilst others will call it a day to get a decent kip for it start over again.

This is what I love about these types of events. They attract so many different types of riders all with varying abilities. You could have a seasoned pro on one hand and a weekend warrior on the other. There could be multiple kilometres separating them only for poop stop to turn things on it’s head. You could think you’ve opened up a gap to your nearest rival but quickly nipping into the Spar for a quick Mars bar and can of juice and you’ll hear the buzzing of a freewheel pass outside.

Anyway, I’ll keep this one short tonight as I’ve to get in a couple of episodes of ‘The Blacklist’ with the bird. We’re on the episode where the character Katarina Rostova is trying to suss out who Raymond Reddington really is. Exciting times.

So, I’ll leave you with some of the action caught on film instead. A picture paints a thousand words an all that!

Nite nite peeps,
DP

Hold the boat….. spoiler alert. Elizabeth Keen has just figured out that the woman that has befriended her is in fact her mother, Katrina Rostova. God bless Sky Boxsets.