Showing Off.

Having spent yesterday driving down to Wrexham, I made a silly mistake; it was hissing down with rain and I should have put my swimming costume on to pitch the tent. As it was, I ended up absolutely drenched and had to mop out the inside of the tent before unpacking the rest of my stuff.
 
The occasion was the annual twenty-four hour cycle race in which I have participated since the turn of the century. Today was different; I have decided that my body is now too old to complete such an arduous task or, at least, my indigestion system is. My role this year, together with an old friend from my youth, is to make a note of which cyclists pass through the village of Quina Brook, and at what time; however, my duties don’t begin until about six hours after the start which allowed me to Blip the riders as they passed the 200 yard mark. Some of the riders studiously ignored me while others settled into an aerodynamic posture to try and create a good impression; but number 78 was the only rider to make an exhibition of himself – I’ll try and catch him again at the 200 yards to go mark.
 
One the way to our control we stopped at Prees, the central hub of the event – apart from the start and the finish, riders are never more than 15 miles away; here I took the panorama in the extras; it is actually composed of 5 pictures, mostly to remove the extraneous traffic. There seems to be an optical illusion created by the telephoto perspective that makes the riders appear to be heading for the bushes; I shall have to see if I can do something about that when (if) I have time.
 

Jane, the young lady in the second extra deserves some mention; she is the only female racing trikie that I have seen and she confounded the sceptics, who said that women are not strong enough to steer a tandem trike for such a distance, by piloting one to the British ladies’ record a couple of years ago. This year, she finished with 315 miles to win the coveted Tricycle Trophy, the first lady to do so in the 105 years since it was first presented. She also holds the trike version of the Land’s End to John O’ Groats record. It is my boast that I won the Tricycle Trophy for winning a twelve hour race the year that Jane was born, it would not be gentlemanly to say which year that was.

Sorry, forgot to post the extras.