Sportives… its not a race... But it is really! It's a canny way around all the daft rules associated racing on public roads and offers an opportunity for those without a British Cycling Federation Licence to get out and have a damn good thrash round some of the best cycling roads in the country with the spirit of competition.
Its against the clock, so position on the road is almost irrelevant as you're given a window of about an hour to start the ride.
I don't do many of these events, but they are a great training opportunity, so there were some objectives for the day, ride the 100 miles non-stop in somewhere near 6 hours and try-out a new feeding strategy. I struggle with gels at the best of times and the thought of eating 12 of them was enough to make me feel queasy… not to mention the horrid sticky mess I always seem to end-up in! So the plan was to split it, mini-flapjacks every 45 mins for the 1st half and 6 gels for the 2nd half.
We had agreed to meet at JC’s, Paul, Mike, JC and I would ride the 8 miles to the event and meet Mark and Leigh over there in time to sign-on, fiddle with timing chips and be ready for the off at 8am.
The start opened promptly at 8am and we rolled-out with the first group, minus Mark and Leigh who were somewhere in the car park trying to sober-up after a wedding the previous day. It was really nice to have a relaxed start for a change, rather than the usual Zero-to-Redline in 10 seconds.
A bit of a delay at some traffic lights saw a split in the group and being the ever competitive wee soul that I am, took up the chase. We caught them after a bit of effort and I hooked onto a couple of lads that seemed to be pushing on at a good pace. It wasn’t long before it was just two of us and then as my new partner eased away on a gentle rise and, disappearing into the middle distance, his tanned, shaved calf muscles like knotted ropes, hinting at his 1st Category (elite) Road Race status (he was 1st home in 5hrs 14mins) it was time for me to settle into a 50 mile lone battle into a difficult headwind.
I’d been out in no-mans-land for a long time with only the occasional glimpse of the next rider a good distance ahead, and no-one behind for ages until I spotted another lone figure crossing the gap, steadily hunting me down! I tried so hard to stay with him when he passed, and did for a good few miles but fact is, he was stamping on the pedals so hard that it was as much as I could do to stay on his wheel on the flat(he finished 2nd in 5hrs 21mins!).
The biggest climb of the day came just before the halfway point heading out of Thorncliffe almost 900ft of steady uphill followed by some wildly fast descending… my bravery running-out at 48.8mph!
Finally the route turned around and the headwind I’d been cursing for the last couple of hours started blowing me in the right direction… head-down maintaining 25ish mph, it’s still hard work but psychologically easier to have a bit of pace. A difficult descent into the Manifold Valley followed by a vicious 1:4 climb back out and we’re head back towards Ashbourne and I’m back on roads that I know quite well.
Finally outside of Ashbourne, I team up with another chap and we work well together for the final 20 miles. The finish line appeared a couple of miles earlier than I’d expected and I crossed the line recording a time of 5hrs 48mins 5secs. That translates to 18th of 232, I’m quite pleased with that, and that’s the longest time in the saddle non-stop this year with no real issues other than aching shoulders etc.!!!
Still need to work on an effective feeding strategy, it was ok, but as expected I was a sticky mess by the end!
Interesting to find out that a few Cycling stars turned-out for the event. John Perks who turned 80(!) earlier this year and a bit of a cycling ledgend did the 70 mile course in 4hrs 43mins. Martin Earley, stage winner in the Giro d’Italia and winner of the mountain stage into Pau in the ’89 Tour de France.
It was also great to see Paul and JC get home in 6hrs 19mins with Mike following a few mins later having broken a spoke early in the ride!
Back to proper racing this Sunday with 2nd round of the Midlands XC at Mansell Lacy, near Hereford, lets see if I can write-up the Blog a bit earlier!
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