First solo time trial on the East Cowton - Scorton course, needing a time for the VTTA North short distance BAR.

With so few time trials available in the shortened season, a trip away to the Darlington 10 was required to get two open 10s. Having raced this course in 2019 in the Darlington 2-up 10 with Tom I knew it wasn't an especially fast course being single carriageway B road, but it is an honest and safe course.

Covid-19 restrictions meant signing on at the village hall in East Cowton before parking away from the village. Further rules meant that approaching the start line was controlled by a marshal, with the start sheet specifying that this marshal could not be passed more than 5 minutes before a rider's start time. Bizarrely, riders were then queuing at the marshal to get to where they could queue to start! Even more strangely the marshal seemed to think that riders needed to be with him 5 minutes before the start and wasn't happy when Howard rolled up to him with 3 minutes until his start time, which was plenty to get to the start line.

A westerly wind made for a tough outward leg, but good progress was made and I got a clear run round the turn at Scorton village green where a number of people were watching. Howard, having started 2 minutes before me, was in sight as I came out of the village, and the tailwind pushed my speed up nicely. Made the catch and did my best to focus on keeping aero and getting the power out.

Just did enough to get under 23 minutes with a time of 22:57. Pleased with that time on such a hard course, and Spindata confirmed it was a good ride with my first sub-2000 score.