Last Wednesday was my usual Wednesday night race and it was a Merkx time trial. That's their name for a time trial ridden on your usual racing bike: no aero bars, no disk wheels, no pointy helmets. It was a very warm night at 30°C so I decided to carry water for such a short race. I would finish it before arriving back to the car after the race. I was the second rider to head out and I tried to catch the first rider. I didn't catch him but I did catch two other riders; one guy warming up and one guy who was supposed to be the marshal at the NW corner of the course. Unfortunately, this series has been so well run and I didn't know the guy I passed was supposed to be a marshal that I would end up flying through that corner and only thinking that TWP 262 sounded very familiar. I wound up getting 2:22 and one kilometre of extra effort on the night. I was credited with covering the 16.2 km course in 27:42 (although some people maintain the course was 16.8 km). That gives me a speed somewhere in the 35 – 36 km/h range despite being slightly demoralized by the extra scenery I enjoyed. My maximum speed was 65.9 km/h. I did help three other riders who all approached the same corner together just ahead of the marshal as I was coming back up the hill to get back on course. I noticed one of those riders got on my wheel after he turned around and let me help him part of the way to the finish. I think I was able to ride away from him and open up a proper time trial gap after a short time.
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