ECCA 100
2002
No essay for this, but this email tells more of the story than I can remember today.
(At the time of writing, Keith was the RTTC Competitions and Records secretary, and Graham was my contact to (possibly) get stuff published in Cycling Weekly)
Keith & Graham
Well, I've learned my lesson from last year, and won't announce to the
entire world that Marina and I have broken another record.
However, we believe that we probably have, and so we would be most
grateful if you (Keith) could send us a claim form.
The
race? Well, conditions were definitely harder than last
year, with quite a stiff breeze making westbound travel quite a bit
slower than eastbound. After 25 miles, we were caught by eventual
winners Jon Jennings & Judith Swallow. Although they drifted out
of sight, we recaught them at around 60 miles. I think we must've
surprised them, as they then went away again. However, we then
recaught them with about 15 miles remaining, and kept them 100 yards
behind for much of the rest of the way.
We were also quite surprised to take 80 miles to catch the third tandem (for one minute). In the end, the tandems were excitingly closely packed.
Our
final time of 4: 3:12 is 18m 17s faster than the 1995 record held by
Colin Knapp and Ursula Betterton. If ratified, it will be our
first RTTC record as pairing.
Ralph