So the evening was spent hanging around Stirling castle, spectacular venue, pish weather! It had been lovely all day (which at least meant good light when channel 4 came to film us :-) ) and decided to rain from about 3 hours before the prologue to half an hour before. This left the cobblestones and off road sections a little interesting.
Our issues started before the race, when some little shits thought out was funny to chuck stuff at us when unloading the van. Andy Mitchell stepped back to look at where the missiles were coming from and fell over his bike, gashing his calf and bending his rear mech. A bit of fiddling and it seemed to be shifting ok.
I was first off on a 3k run around the base of the castle, my good start keeping me clear of people falling over at the 180 degree downhill left hander going from cobbles to stairs. Unfortunately i then went backwards, and was soon chicked. Thankfully so was everyone else but one speedy orienteer, and I came in about 8th or 9th.
Andy w took off on the orienteering leg closely followed by Fi McBride, and they had a good leg, coming back in together in about 5th.
Then it was our Fi's turn, heading out on a MTB leg that all the top British teams were sending their ladies on. Thankfully ours is better at navigation, so she came in about 4th having done a slightly shorter loop than some of the others, though she was also displaying gravel rash, a scuffed rear quick release, and a smashed shoe buckle. Thankfully she is the same size feet as Rachel, so a shoe swap has occurred.
So Andy m went out on his repaired bike in sight of the leaders on the longest leg. The tracking web site didn't show him making good progress, so there was some concern as running chick's team mate came in to take the win (the prologue was open to the public, so this team wasn't doing the whole range). This was alleviated a couple of minutes later when Andy rode up the hill with Ant Emmett from mountain hard wear to share the full racer's win.
Not a bad start :-)
I'm racing in team 17, FGS nectar.
Live tracking should be up at http://live.adidas-ar.com/
*
--
Sorry about any Swype induced spelling issues
