The 22nd August had me travelling up to Darley Moor race track in Derbyshire for a days racing. I left early to give myself plenty of time and arrived at the circuit gates at 9am.
Once I was inside the circuit I got my bike ready and had a chat with some of the regulars. The weather had turned out to be good as opposed to the forecast which was going to be rainy. It's always preferable to race in the sunshine and warmth.
The plan was to have two twenty minute races, one anti-clockwise and the next clockwise. The plan was also slow and fast races. I went out for a warm up only to discover that my chain squeak had returned. I had changed the chain tube from a convoluted one I had in the shed to a smooth bore plumbing tube, but the pulley squeak was annoying. So it was back to the "pits" to grease where I thought the noise was from. Back out again and I hadn't improved it, so much so that IanP commented on the squeak from his velomobile mount (and he's deaf :-) ). Oh well, race is coming up.
So I lined up for the race start and as usual really screwed up getting clipped in. Chasing again I managed to catch up the usual suspects only to get dropped really quickly. The next 20 minutes (remember it's usually 40) was just hell, and by the end of the race I had so little energy that I could hardly hold my head up. I didn't finish last but it was a dreadful result. Lunch called.
Second race started in the opposite direction and I managed one lap before calling it a day. What a disastrous day all round.
I headed home before the second fast race had finished, a little rude of me but I was in a foul mood (which is why it has taken me this long to post). Once home the BHPC website came to the rescue and pointed me in the direction of a new pulley which I so badly needed (or so I thought) to replace the squeaker). All I can say is, check the whole system. Once the pulley (1) had arrived I fitted it and tested the bike on my turbo trainer, but something was wrong. I removed the other pulley (the original one) only to find that it had catastrophically failed. I couldn't turn it by hand, but could by pedalling, was this the source of so much drag? It had to be replaced so I ordered another 3 pulleys from the same place in Holland with spacers to suit as I was going to remove the chain tube as well. I figured that I might as well take out as much drag as I could while I was at it. So after waiting another week, the new pulleys arrived and were fitted. I tried the new system a couple of times on the turbo trainer and it seemed OK. I had also done some more work on the head rest which still wasn't quite right. But as with all these things only racing would really show if the fix had worked, so it was off to...
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