After turning off, there was a moment’s blessed relief at the roundabout as we waited for the lights to change. Taking a draught from my water bottle, I sneaked a glance at my HRM and immediately regretted it. As the lights turned to green it was like a drag race. Backsides in the air, I latched onto someone’s wheel and hung in close as we hit the ‘burbs. Calls of “car left!” and “hole!” rang into the night as we swooshed through neighbourhoods, gears whirring and chests heaving.

By this stage, I’d given up trying to rotate with the other riders as I was having a hard enough time just staying on. I felt an unspoken compact with the peleton that as the only girl in the pack, it was okay if I just clung to whichever wheel was nearest and kept my head out of the wind. Occasionally, someone would call back to me, “okay, Charlotte?” If I had the breath, I’d wheeze out a reply and let them know how grateful I was for the tow.

After the turn in Weybridge, I could feel the power ebbing away from my body and I knew that the journey home was going to be even harder. The pace wasn’t letting up; in fact it only seemed to keep getting faster. Once or twice, I came off the back and started to wonder if I’d be riding back alone, but just as I started thinking thoughts of letting off and spinning again, someone would fall back and give me a tow for a mad two minutes back into the safety of the group. There is a long, straight road from Hersham to Esher and I was tail-end Charlie as we turned the corner to face it.

I knew it was coming and was almost looking forward to it because I know that I’m stronger on the flats than I am up the hills. Perhaps I’m built for time trialling rather than circuit racing as I can hold a good speed on the flat and I knew this was where the boys were really going to drop the hammer. I looked down at my speedo when I dared and saw the digits increasing as the pace quickened. Twenty… twenty one. Legs whirred and lights flashed. Twenty two and it was just starting. Twenty three; watch out for that hole on the left, that could have been nasty. Twenty four and I could start to taste my own blood.

I was giving it my all and then I remembered the hill into Esher. There wasn’t a chance in hell that I was going to keep it up on that and I tried to call ahead to tell someone that I’d catch them after it if they eased off at the top. Touching the brakes for the roundabout, we peeled round it in single file, all hunkered down on our drops with Doug leading the pack like Armstrong on point in a team time trial. I knew that this was where their power and fitness would really show and no matter how I pushed myself, I saw the twinkling lights pull away into the distance up the hill.

But when I got to the top myself and turned left for Sandown, I could still see the lights and with one last push, I caught up enough to ride the roller coaster down to Molesey. From the top of Sandown hill, you can see for miles and miles and I caught a glimpse of the arch at Wembley as I shifted up onto the big ring for the mad, mad descent. Looking back at my speedo afterwards, it must have been here that I saw thirty six miles an hour. Round the right hand bend, I ran wide, taking the fastest and safest line in the road. I was back in the pack now and able to stay out of the wind again.

At Hampton Court, the group got split in the traffic, but all the way along the river, we kept it up and got back together in Hampton. Then came the final sprint to the green, where the club meets on a Sunday morning and where there is an unwritten rule that you ease right back and wind it down through town to the church hall.

It was over. Twenty five miles of lung-bursting, heart-pounding madness. The fastest ride I’ve had in months and this morning, my legs are reminding me of that fact.

I expect I’ll be back next week for more.

.charlotte barnes