Sunday started at 6.00am with my usual rise from bed necessitated by the need for an almighty piss (damn that chatueax lafit) followed by a shredded wheat based feast. The day would involve 110 miles taking in 2600m of climbing over a fairly lumpy english countryside. The route is all about short and sharp climbs that come at you with an alarming regularity so how did I fair.....
Fairly average I'm afraid.....6hr 39 which will put me outside of Gold and I suffered for it too!
It was far from a disaster however a few things annoyed me:
1. A puncture
2. Hitting a big pot hole on a descent that moved my right shifter right round the bar and in doing so locked my front brake on
3. Pretty bad back ache from mile 85 onwards brought on I think by the above
4. Going wrong on the route twice...aggghhhhh
5. I rode solo for 90% of the event, just no bloody groups came past me which made it real tough at the end
I probably only lost about 10 mins tops due to the above mecahnicals, it did make me think thank god this didn't happen at the Marmotte, I guess I need to check the bike over some more pre-ride.
The major plus was it was a stunning day and the event was well organised, I'm realising that local club run events are pretty special. The standards are quite high and you can tell they are being run for all the right reasons, definitely support them if you can.
At the end we had 27 degrees and my celtic (thanks Mum) blood did find it a bit tough to be honest. My stomach was trying to make me throw up after mile 60 and I just couldn't get enough liquid down me. I need to sort this out for the Marmotte, 27 degrees will feel like the artic compared to south France on the Alpe.
So another sportive done and my next is a few weeks time based on the south downs over 130 miles and well over 3000 mtrs of climbing...a really good test 2 weeks before the real thing.
Steve
PS I did ride with one guy at the beginning who had a beautiful colnago c59 italia in blue with full DI2, major bike envoy on that one!
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