Having done one TT and one shot at time keeping this year, I thought it was time to pick my discipline. I went for the time keeping. I like numbers, nearly as much as Vaughan.
If there is a prize for best timekeeper this year, I must be in with a shout. I brought low sugar muffins (I’ll admit they were not my own work - offering from my trampolining daughter Kathleen) and have spent my lunch hour doing aerodynamic analysis for you all. Didn’t quite take the hour, and Enda “Heisenberg” Marron should check the calculations.
So the Athlete’s TT …. what difference does the £5000 spent on aero gear make. Without us knowing, VP has been carrying out an experiment in cash spent vs time gains and here are the numbers. I’ll have to pick just three of you (O’Neill, Morrison and Purnell), as the rest of us either look the same at every TT or are not nuts enough to spend sufficient £s to make a difference. But those three are. Marron would have been in here too, had he not decided a Chinese on the way home was preferable to bringing the bike in the jeep.
Over the last two TT seasons, the average times (and ranges) for the three aero nuts on the Carryduff circuit are:
Purnell 28:00 (range of about +/- 60 seconds)
Morrison 28:00 (range of about +/- 50 seconds)
O’Neill 28:10 (range of about +/- 11 seconds)
Remarkably similar. Spookily similar. Purnell can bore us further with medians and standard deviations as he looks to find the stat that puts him on top.
This week they had a touch more fluid dynamic drag as they wore their everyday casual outfits. Their times were slower by 1min (O’Neill), 2m23s (Purnell)and 2m40s (Morrison) compared to their average. There you go, all can rest easy that the aero investment was well spent.
An average of £5000 buys 1-3min gains. My take on this, O’Neill managed to stay within 1min of his average time and is a true athlete …. Purnell and Morrison are rich playboys who have bought success.
[VP: in the interests of accuracy it should be pointed out that O'Neill was riding an aero bike (SHAME SHAME SHAME) with deep section wheels, Morrison also had deep section wheels (SHAME SHAME SHAME), and Purnell's aero TT kit is under the 2K mark. The reader may draw their own conclusions!]
Mr Carroll, the race referee ruled that Williamson looked too daper this week for his time to count and subsequently disqualified him.
Girls
Christen O’Neill 33:25
Play boys
Neville O’Neill 29:10 Vaughan Purnell 30:23 Peter Morrison 30:40 Steve Begley 32:02 Conor McGandy 32:17 Paul Hetherington 32:41 Dave Lonnen 33:23 Peter McGuiken 35:11 Karl King 35:12
Peter Williamson 29:28 (impressive time, but DQ. Appeals to Ironman Carroll)
Thanks to time keepers Stevie, Paul and Enda.
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