Arriving at the start of Tuesday's Hilly TT, I was hoping that the rain would have scared the riders away and I could get an easy win. Unfortunately for me, 10 other hardy competitors decided to brave the conditions and I had to settle for third at +4:11. Despite the rain, Paul Rogers won in a time of 53:06 with a much improved Andy Walters taking second at +3:47 and snatching yet another handicap win (Andy put his improvement down to making full use of his extra weight on the descents ;) ). Mohammed Sheikh also showed significant improvement, enough to challenge Andy for the handicap win (maybe next week?) and youth rider Chris Brookes clocked 1:12:36 in his first attempt at the course. Kate Evans returned to make a puncture free circuit of the route, setting the Ladies course record at 1:12:09 (well at least as far back as 2004, my records don't back go any further!).

Other riders suffered in the conditions with Mark Spruce losing time as a result of a slow puncture, my own time being off my best due to the extra weight of water soaking my shoes and socks and Rob Burns suffering a full blown puncture. Rob took full advantage of the Fred Williams mail order service to buy a gas canister and within minutes Mike Williams came riding through with his purchase. Unfortunately, due a glitch in the Fred's mail order system, this proved incompatible with Rob's disc wheel (Mike assures me that the Fred's IT department are looking into this).

Thanks to Dilys Stockton and Paul Rogers for their mission of mercy in rescuing the stranded Rob Burns and thanks to Pete Hartill for running the event in fairly grim conditions.

See you all next week for more of the same (well hopefully with a bit less rain).