Saturday and Sunday were completely different.

All week I tried to avoid my fellow work mates as everyone seem to be ill. Saturday woke up at 4 am with a soar throat. Four hours later I arrived at Newport track only to find out I had got the race program wrong. I must have opened last years schedule in my email inbox! Anyway, the extra time gave me a chance to check the bike out and get a nice long warm up. Four laps into my warm up a puncture while three quarters of the way up the bank. Lucky it was the rear tyre so I was able to keep control of the bike and stop.

With my spare wheel on we took to the line for the 60 lap point race. Two riders broke after ten laps. I thought I had the fitness to jump across the gap so gave it a go. I made contact with them but the effort proved too much and my race was soon over.

In the afternoon I found a local bike shop and bought a new tub. Next disaster was the headlights on my car failing! The rest of my day spent finding a halfords before gluing the new tub on and taking the car headlight apart just to change a b****y bulb!

I woke up on Sunday feeling a lot better. I got down to the track early to gove me time to check I had glued the tub on correctly as the last thing I needed was to roll my tub off the rim doing 35mph! I was in the first heat for the 750TT. I felt nicely warmed up as I took the start. A good start although my lack of standing start training meant I didn't have the fastest of starts. I rode smoothly on my 94" gear to record a time of 55.34 second. About the same time as last year. Anthony Wallace took the gold in 53.48 second and third was 56 second.

A couple of hours later it was the scratch race. This time I controlled my effects. The race was over 60 laps and right from the start the pace was in the high twenties. Four riders gained a lap. Two of the four gained another lap. With 14 laps to go I took off by myself. I knew if I could gain a lap it was a medal. I got within 60 meter of the bunch before getting bought back with 3 laps to go. At least I had a go. Nevertheless a silver medal was a great result!

Andrew Elderfied