Handbuilt Wheels from Strada

photo by SussexSportPhotography.com

Well done Tom as he  takes 2nd place at National Olympic Distance championships. Here is his report from Bedford on Sunday 15th August 2010:

“I’m happy to report a second place finish at the national olympic distance championships yesterday. It was a slightly frustrating race in which I was just on the wrong side of several traffic delays and had to watch my rivals riding off up the road. Nonetheless I am pleased with the result and it has further consolidated my consistency this season.

The river swim was more of a battle with weeds than anything else! At least half of the swim course was dominated by thick patches of submerged weeds which did an admirable job of slowing you down. I led my wave on the upstream leg by which time we were well amongst the swimmers from the waves ahead of us. What with the other swimmers and the weeds I didn’t know exactly where I was on the downstream leg but think I came out of the water second.

I had a pretty awful T1 transition with a persistent bit of weed that was wrapped around my ankle stopping me get my wetsuit off. Eventually I got out onto my bike hot on the heels of the leaders of my wave. Unfortunately at the first two junctions I had to stop for oncoming traffic and could do nothing but see the leaders riding off up the road. There was another slight delay due to avoiding a female competitor who fell off just in front of me . I eventually made up the gap to the leaders, the bike course was flat apart from a few short climbs and with not much wind to speak of I knew it was going to be hard to get any gap with the remaining distance. I was disappointed to see a fair bit of drafting, which really should not be prevalent at that level of competition and certainly did not help my cause.

I came into, and left T2 with James Ratcliffe. He ran out hard for the first couple of kilometres and as I felt the early signs of cramp setting in could not match his pace. With the cramping easing off I was able to get into my stride a bit more and felt OK. I was able to hold my distance behind James but didn’t have enough left to close the gap. He eventually crossed the line 30 seconds ahead of me.

All things considered I am happy with how I performed on the day. The traffic I encountered on the course is just down to bad luck and nothing to be bitter about. I am very happy to add another consistent podium finish to this year’s resume”.

SussexSportPhotography.com

Strada are proud to announce we will be sponsoring triathlete Tom Sturdy as his race and training wheel supplier.

Tom has an Ironman Pro competition licence, finished 17th from 2500 competitors in the (Raperswil-Jona) Zurich 70.3 Ironman 2010 and won the Shropshire Triathlon in June 2010. He has resting heart rate of 35 bpm, covers 500km per week on his bike and has a first class honours aeronautical engineering degree from Loughborough Uni, what a combination! Tom is working towards competing in the highly competitive US 70.3 Ironman series next year.

Tom will be providing us with detailed feedback on our wheelsets, posting race reports + photos and reviews on wheelsets on the Strada Hand Built Wheels blog. You can read Tom’s full bio here.

Welcome to the team Tom.