Levens and the Roberts

Its been a 'sweet and sour' type of weekend for me, but mostly sweet.
I dropped my Roberts off at Paul Curran's Bike Shop in Teesside last week and it didn't take him long to give (mostly) everything the once over and text me to say the bike was ready. I drove down on Saturday to collect it. He said it had had some admiring glances as it sat in his shop. It's whats called a neo-retro, a classic bike frame that's had an update. Never seen one up here in the north.
I was on my way to Levens, a renowned 10 mile time trial. After last weekends success at Irvine, I was chilled about Levens. If I p.b'd then great; if not, no dramas.
I took the A66 across the Pennines and arriving beside the HQ, I drove the course. Not great and not a patch on Irvine, I mused; and the wind was up and gusting. There was no time to dip into my current read,  Tolstoy's 'the death of Ivan Illych', which is surprisingly good, not too long and not a million miles off Daphne Du Maurier in style. 
It was a full field of 120 riders and some reserves and I was off at 7:12pm. I warmed up on some nearby roads and some of the drivers were a bit speedy and a bit close for my liking. I had a chat with a guy from Rutherglen who was off a couple of minutes before me and he was regretting the long trip south, thinking about the wind.
The lad in front of me had all the gear and was riding for Hawick. His bike was a thing of beauty and right enough his ability must have matched his equipment as he won the event with 20m:00sec on a winnie the pooh blustery day.  Needless to say I never caught sight of him. In the meantime, I made what I could of the dualled road, then single carriageway, then dualled affair into a stiff and gusting headwind, and then cracked on back with a tailwind. I finished a minute down on Irvine and cooled down with a 5 mile ride around the sleepy South Lakes villages before returning to the car. It was a pleasure to inhale the wood smoke from the holiday homes and see the trees heavy with apples and plums in the late evening.
I drove back via Penrith where I stopped for a kebab,  but it turned out to be a Greek takeaway, so I ended up with something nearly a kebab but described as a yeeros (or gyros). Not a patch on what they serve in Dalkeith.  Paprika and chips in there, but no chilli; whats that all about?
This morning the sun was out and I took the Roberts out for its first ride. I tagged in with a group initially until my back wheel came out of the frame up a hill, then sat in later with a little group of Zeus CRT riders (a club I was in 15 years ago). We had a good chat. Apart from one of my brake levers working loose, the new old bike was a pleasure to ride and I stopped at Capheaton for a prolonged tea (but no cake) to savour the end of a long held ambition to ride one of these frames.

I have two hilly time trials left to complete before the season's end. One's a short affair locally that goes up Bilsmoor and the Gibbet early in September and the other's a return visit to Aberfoyle for the Tour de Trossachs (if I get in).  The good news is that I am back into my old trousers, which means the weight is coming down. It will have to if I am going to do myself justice at these late season events where carrying excess weight is no help whatsoever.
I'll just add that I've knocked out 15 miles running this week; However, I don't want to tempt fate, so will keep this between you and me until I am back into the running groove.