Competition from a Youth & Junior

I'm by no means an expert on racing, however I suggested to one of my competitors that we should go for a training pedal together and I could offer some advice on tactics and sprinting.  He lives in a nearby village so we met up on Sunday morning and rode one of my favourite 100km routes.

It was whilst we were ascending Hexton hill, in between gasping for breath that I enquired how old he was. "Seventeen" he replied without gasping. OMG I am old enough to be his granddad and yet I am racing with him and managing to keep up - just.

We completed the 100km in a new PB for me and I got home in time for lunch followed by a bit of tinkering on my new Brompton...

 

I swapped over my Brooks saddle from my old Brompton and applied some helicopter tape to the spots on the frame which tend to suffer from cable rub.

 

My 11 year old son gave the new bike a test run and gave it the thumbs up claiming the 6-speed is an improvement on my old 2-speed.  I'm still unsure, but we both agreed that the hub gear change is very stiff to operate.

 

A short test run around the road is clearly not going to provide a good assessment, so we decided to go out for a longer run, my son on the new bike and me riding my old S2L.  We rode our 7 mile hilly route and, by making effective use of the gearing on the new bike, my son got around the course without bother.  My legs were having a grumble though.

 

And still are - on Wednesday :-(

Mauled by a youth and a junior. I hope my legs recover for tomorrow night's race.