Is that one of those Whippets?....

Sunday saw the first round of the local and by far the greatest endurance winterseries @ Thetford.

This years first round was on the extra fast Brandon country park so was hotting up to be a classic race. Me and Mr Read got organised and turned up about 2hrs before the start, enough for a faff about and a pre-ride of the whole 7 mile lap.

I was ultra keen so got to the start line about 30mins before the start just aftering completing my lap, no surprise to find Endurance legends Mr Anthony White and Paul Ashby already there.

Nice long chat with Mr White calmed the nerves and looking around at the sea of 750 riders lined up was an awesome site. (400 riders in the ultra fast 2hr cat!)

We were off I didnt keep right at the front as I know my limits but kept up at the front enough to avoid any bottlenecking at the singletrack entrance.

Then about a mile in disaster struck a rear puncture on the first little climb, HOW in my sealant filled tube (first of the year). On closer inspection there was a half inch rip in the tyre.

Lucky for me Ian was behind and stopped and basically fixed the puncture for me with his C02, big thank you and great team spirit!.

Now have to battle my way back through the 100 riders who had just passed me was going to be a legburner, but I had 4hrs to do it in so all was still possible.

Head down and my planned average speed of 13mph suddenly shot up to 16.

Averaging about 30 mins a lap it took me till about lap 6 to get to the top 20 riders and then it was until lap 7 /8 that I picked off some more and finally rocking in at 13th.

Not a bad effort considering the time lost at the beginning and the extra energy spent on the battle to the front.

Mr Read suffered for 2hrs and called it a day after a crash with friend and local rider Stef.

As usual the team whippet was a cause for many conversations throughout the day and I spotted at least three others out on the course and from the comments I hearing the bike could be the value carbon ride of the decade!

Right so at least for my efforts im gridded for the next event so bring on the pain 4/12/11.