If you’ve ever seen the 2004 film by the same name, you’ll understand that the butterfly effect refers to how small occurrences can effect major changes further down the line.
For most of us, a chain jumping on a bike ride counts as little more than an annoyance. A small occurrence, if you will.
But for Hampshire bike racer Bobby Buenfield, what should have been an innocuous mechanical blip that would have been forgotten well before he’d finished his training ride back in April, the butterfly effect took full hold and turned his day – and his entire year – upside-down.
Instead of the chain settling on to the next sprocket, Buenfield lost control of his bike, which took him up a grass verge and deposited him headlong into a tree at 60kph. The result? A broken back – and months off the bike.
When he did though he made it count, with an impressive comeback that saw him win what probably counts as Britain’s best-loved non-British time trial – the Duo Normand, which happened to be making its own comeback at the same time.
But last weekend he dug out the time trial bike for the first time since before his accident – “I’d not even looked at it since April,” he says – to see how his back would bear up under the more extreme low-pro position.
The winners take the spoils
(Image credit: Bobby Buenfeld)
The Duo Normand, based in the small French town of Marigny in the Normandy region, is a two-up time trial that has been won by some of the UK’s biggest time trial stars.
It’s honours roll dates back to 1982, and among those winners are Chris Boardman, who has won three times, including with Paul Manning (1996) and Jens Voigt (1999), Michael Hutchinson, who teamed up with arch time trialling rival Stuart Dangerfield in 2002, and Sir Bradley Wiggins, who partnered Michael Elijzen of the Netherlands to the win in 2007. More recently, Visma-Lease a Bike star Victor Campenaerts took victory alongside his now-retired countryman Jelle Wallays in 2015.
The ‘Duo’ was cancelled in 2020 because of the pandemic, and until last weekend, had not been seen since. Many wondered whether it would ever really return, and a false start last year that came to nothing certainly didn’t help.
But last month, 21 September, Marigny once again thrummed to the sound of disc wheels and time trialling fans, as well as townsfolk serendipitously caught up in the fray – the Duo Normand was on once again.
Unsurprisingly, it looked a little different to its pre-2020 incarnation. The course – made up of Normandy’s bucolic but lumpy back lanes – was shortened from 54km to 40km and run off in the opposite direction. And instead of UK riders making up a significant proportion of the field, Buenfeld and Baldie were left to further the cause alone as the only all-British pair.
Despite the fact he would barely been out of primary school when it was last run, the Duo Normand’s reputation preceded it, Buenfeld told Cycling Weekly.
“We knew about it, knew it would be a cool thing to do,” he said, “so I was quite excited to get the call-up.”
When it came to their hopes of glory, Buenfeld said the pair thought they could have a reasonable chance of doing well in their chosen ‘open’ category.
“But it was more about going over and enjoying it all,” he says, “and any result would be bit of a bonus.”
Unfortunately the weather did its best to dampen the occasion, but the riders and the people of Marigny remained unperturbed.
“It’s so good,” he says. “All the people love it as well. We went on a recce the day before, before we even left the house, we had a Frenchman running up to us with his little course map, telling us all about it… they just all like cycling.”
Buenfeld and Baldie recorded 51:17 for the 40km (25-miles) course, which is no pan-flat dragstrip – enough to put them more than a minute ahead of the next pairing, and just 56 seconds behind the only pair entered in the elite category – Clement and Matteo Guilbert, both of nearby Moyon Percy Velo Club.
Buenfeld hopes to be back again, he says, this time with a bit more training under his belt and who knows – if this is the rebirth of the Duo Normand, perhaps with a few more British pairs in support too, as the event makes its way make into the nation’s conscience.
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