As the title should make obvious, the weekend's regrouping of Team Grumpy once again failed to set the world of team timetrialling aflame, with another rather under par performance. Grumpy Bob would like to be able to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the erstwhile Team Manager, who chose to spend the afternoon gardening rather that shouting requests for 400W at the team, but frankly it was down to the riders.
Having said that, both 'Grumpy' Art and Grumpy Bob rode pretty well together on the whole, and accommodated each other's strengths (few though they might have been on the day) and weaknesses (numerous though they may have been on the day). Grumpy Bob had managed to forget his Garmin, so was riding without telemetry, which turned out to be rather a good thing, and (he says) quite liberating.
Ultimately, however, this performance really ranks among the many underwhelming 2-up performances Team Grumpy has delivered on the domestic time trialling scene in recent years. Team Grumpy is looking for a further domestic 2-up before they leave for the Duo Normand in September, and both riders are looking at the Norlond '10' in early September. Between now and then, Grumpy Bob imagines both riders will be exhorted by the Team Manager to train just that bit harder. Actually the Team Manager has a disturbing tendency to refer to 'training' as 'practicing', which brings with it images of complete amateurishness on the part of the riders.