Another sunny Sunday, another sportive…superb!  Welcome to the fourth annual Great Weston Ride.  I know this to be true, as GB and I have done every single one!  It’s one of those tradition things now.  Which also indicates that it must be a good event, why else would we keep doing it? ;).  It’s been a long time since I’ve done a sportive in company, so I was really looking forward to it on many levels.

It’s also traditional for us to ride there.  To ride back home afterwards.  And for GB to never take us in to the start via the same route each year.  Well he’s the commuter, so therefore somewhat of an expert on routes from here to Bristol!  Clayton, Karl, and myself all met him at the end of his road at 6:30am, under disappointingly cloudy skies, for an uneventful and fairly easy ride to HQ at Long Ashton Park and Ride.  He led, we followed meekly along behind.  My retinal image is reinstated ;).  I was half hoping we might have time to tick the Ashton Park Gromit off my list, but there really wasn’t, and besides, it would be a weird thing to have done to the three others, and a tad unfair.

Cycling time: 1:14 hrs.
Distance: 19.8 miles.
Avs: 16.0 mph.
ODO: 3033.7 miles.

HQ is, as I said,  at Long Ashton Park and Ride, where there is unsurprisingly a lot of space for people to park and ride!  No buses today though, just cyclists.  Registration was easy – just join the relevant alphabetised queue, and get your number, cable ties, emergency details card, and free 9 bar (gluten, wheat & dairy free!) from the smiley encouraging lady behind the table.  There were plenty of official GWR jerseys around, as well as charity jerseys – particularly for Prostrate Cancer, one of which was being sported by Clayton – very fetching.  For those that needed it, mechanical support was available too.

The event gets busier every year, unsurprisingly, and I think the demand for the toilets is now outstripping supply.  There are , unusually, a lot of women that do this ride, and so there were queues on both sides, that were getting longer and longer as more people arrived…  I decided that I’d pass on that last minute “gotta go before you leave the house” visit, and we all headed for the start.  It wasn’t so much a queue as a coalescing group.  At some point the group decided, in that weird unspoken herd of sheep way, that it was time to move to the start line.  Probably because the official start time of 8:00am was approaching.  It was actually almost chilly out there, not helped by having ridden in and cooled down in clammy fashion, so I think we were all quite keen to be underway.  Only so much faffing you can do, right?

Ride organiser Darren gave each group a bit of a safety briefing, including a warning about the dangerous descent of the day, and then we were away, second batch of the day.  We retraced our steps back through Long Ashton, down the main road (if you’re me) or the very shiny smooth new adjacent cycle path (if you’re GB or Clayton).  Karl had disappeared already, even before we set out!  Presumably the use of cycle path was to make sure GB wasn’t totally going back on himself ;).  I was more worried about negotiating the change between road/path and messing that up in some ridiculously public and embarassing fashion, so slower nastier road suited me just fine!

Barrow Gurney is often a nightmare however you look at it, whatever you go through it on.  It’s narrow, windy, with speed bumps and traffic calming methods…and today, the additional obstacle of a long traffic light managed section.  Deep joy.  At least being very early in the morning by Bristolian standards, there wasn’t much traffic around to add to the negotiation challenge, and the speed bumps are easier on a bike than in a car!  Once out the other side, traffic lights ushered us on to a brief stretch of riding on the A38 before a left turn took us onto quieter and far more pleasant roads.

Knowing these roads as I do, I knew I was in for a nice fast essentially downhill stretch for a while where I could make up for the fact that I had been being crap at anything with anything even vaguely approaching a positive gradient.  All too soon our momentum was cruelly taken away from us, as we turned right at a spoilsport mini roundabout to head towards the ever scenic Chew Valley Lake.  Again, flat, fast, but straight, so the perfect opportunity to take a couple of photos, marking the only time when both GB and Clayton were behind me for any length of time ;).

The closer we got to the big climb of the day, the brighter the day became, and the sun was finally out when we reached the first food stop at the bottom of Burrington Combe.  It was signposted a bit before, but to say it was a tad low key when you got there would be an understatement.  Blink, or look in the wrong direction at the right time, and you’d have missed it.  An eagle eyed Clayton pointed out the drinks point, and once one rider was there, everyone knew where to go!  One of my bottles definitely needed topping up, so that’s what I did, before taking advantage of the public toilets that I knew were a little further up the road.  In previous years the bike shop there, Bad Ass Bikes, has been known to let riders in to use the facilities, but not so this year.  As various riders all milled around the toilets at the bottom of the Combe, and we were preparing to leave, a tractor thundered past us heading upwards, bravely followed by one drafting rider on a fixie – chapeau m’sieur!  We all clapped in appreciation of his efforts, before heading off ourselves in far less impressive fashion.

Burrington Combe may hold no real fear for me, it being actually quite a nice long climb that I’ve done a lot of times before, but every time is different.  I wasn’t feeling at my best (back to the art of understatement) and I was seriously considering asking GB to keep me company for a change…but luckily for him he managed to put enough (ever growing) distance between the two of us before I could ask him, that I never got the chance.  So I pootled up in my usual unimpressive style, only to be overtaken half way up by Gary who’d started fresh from HQ after us, and had some kind of gravity related incident which had b*ggered the rear derailleur and deprived him of seven gears.  Something like that anyway.  He was still kicking my a*se with the remaining gears, so I may have been a little lacking on the sympathy front ;).  GB was kindly waiting for me at the top, where I stopped briefly to have a drink and catch my breath, allowing Gary to go off Clayton hunting, and leaving just the usual two of us again.  I have to admit this came as somewhat of a relief.  The pressure of trying to keep up with Clayton wasn’t bothering GB, but was slightly doing my PMA in, and it was nice to be back to what I’m used to – me, GB, and that little red sign!

I love it on top of the Mendips.  Lovely views that you’ve earned, that top of the world feeling and, just for once, no killer wind.  Not no wind, do be serious, just no killer wind.  In fact the wind that there was was even behind us from time to time, which is always a good thing :).

We took a little wiggle to go through Priddy, presumably to show off the village to the tourists as the detour is slightly gratuitous otherwise, I’d just have turned right a little earlier on, but that’s what comes of cycling these roads all the time.  The back country road from Priddy to rejoin that one is all very pretty but it does have a 90 degree downhill left hand corner on it, where they’d conveniently positioned a photographer.  Good for images no doubt, but not so good for keeping riders paying attention to where they’re going…especially since there turned out to be gravel on the corner too.  One poor lass had come a cropper just before we got there and was washing the road out of her gravel rash as we passed.  Nasty…:(.

It was time for another quick break, this time for a gel, the next dose of nice shiny pills, and a photo op.  This was the descent we were warned about earlier, of Westbury Hill.  See the Caution sign?  Well it’s there for a reason.  Not only is it steep, bendy, shady and not well surfaced, it’s also well used.  As the large tractor equipped with weapons of mass cultivation on the front that came up as we were going down demonstrated.  Luckily we saw it in time to avoid it.  Luckily the eejot who came hooning past me regardless didn’t do that a little sooner, otherwise he’d have been a human kebab…!  A candidate for the Darwin awards? ;).

Eventually we all got held up by vehicular traffic towards the bottom of the hill which at least stopped anyone failing to stop for the junction with the A38.  This, as with several other dodgy junctions, was marshalled, which made getting across much easier and less stressful.  Probably less so for the cars that continued to be going the same way as us for quite some time.  Sorry!  Impressive driver patience for a change though…unlike some out there today.

Rider traffic got a bit annoying here, especially by refusing to single up and let the cars past.  Lack of rider experience rather than obstinacy…probably.  It’s a charity ride.  I’m being charitable.  Still, when it all cleared away we kicked off and put some space between us and them, on roads we know very well.  All the way to Wedmore, out t’other side to Blackford.  We overtook quite a few single male riders, who didn’t seem to like that much.  So they overtook us back.  And, well, you can guess how it goes…we then had to beat them into the second food stop at Hugh Sexey‘s School.  Sheepish juvenile grins were exchanged.  Such fun *grin*.

This ride is renowned for its superlative cake.  Which sadly, it now being a very hot and sunny day, was being a tad neglected in favour of topped up bottles and free squash.  Poor lovely cake.  Even I opted for a large glass of orange squash rather than my usual black coffee, though the caffeine kick might have come in useful later.  GB went for a bacon roll, and we took a little time to kick back in the sunshine and relax for a bit rather than hurtling instantly off again.  Whilst doing this, mini tri-athlete Ollie popped up unexpectedly, having dropped his fellow riders a while back, and we agreed to ride off together.  We couldn’t leave without a toilet stop though.  Well it’s a middle school, with suitably middle sized toilets, which always makes me giggle *grin*.  You could tell term had just ended; flowers in the sink, and an apple for teacher still on the table ;).

The three of us headed off down the mother-in-law road (it goes on and on ;)) to Mark and then on to Highbridge, at quite some speed.  We played rider elastic for a while, but somewhere along the way we dropped Ollie – sorry Ollie!  But it was getting on for that stage of the ride when all you want to do is get to where you’re going.  However there was no going anywhere fast once we got to Highbridge/Burnham on Sea.  In the middle of a heatwave, by the seaside, the traffic was even busier than ever, pouring in and out of town, with precious little chance therefore for irritable, hot and bothered car drivers to get past us, let alone past leisure cyclists happily minding their own business and getting caught up amongst us lot!  Less fun :(.

One of the mistakes I always make on this ride is not to treat is as a proper event, and also not to take into account the distance ridden in first thing.  To put it simply, I don’t eat enough.  Or at all.  I did try and eat some of my bar early on but it was virtually impossible to swallow, and I pretty much gave up.  I did however drink plenty, a saving grace no doubt.  Once out the other side of Burnham and marshalled across the road to head across the wiggly lanes going northwards, it was time for a second gel…as I realised I was feeling like falling asleep.  Never a good sign – and thank goodness for High5 gels!  I also got GB to slow down for a bit so I could gather my wits, as it were.

From here it was, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty easy going.  Hot though!  From Burnham to the end is around 10 or so miles, all flat barring the small rise to get over Uphill.  No hanging around then, time to put the heads down and push for the end, the gel having now cut in.  It was a bit unclear where the end actually was when it came to it, I’m sure there were some countdown markers in previous years, but we at least knew where we were going.  There was a clapping crowd waiting as we pulled off the main seafront road, through the banners and on to the lawn.  Always nice.  There was also a photographer.  Less nice ;).  I have another shiny medal for the collection too!

Last year they were handing out bottles of water when we crossed the line, when we didn’t really need them.  This time we did, but they weren’t in evidence, and I didn’t feel like asking.  I was really dying for a long cold fizzy drink, and if I’d been like Clayton, sitting on the lawn waiting for the missus to pick him up, I’d have been doing the same as him!  If I had however, I’d probably never have made it off the lawn and as we were due to ride home, I settled for a large diet coke from the bar, which was bloomin’ lovely.  As usual I didn’t opt for my free food, though that being laid on by “field and flower” looked lovely.  I don’t think I could have eaten even if I’d tried, and was able!  GB has a habit of not hanging around much after events but having discovered Clayton waiting there and been waved over to join him, we hung around and chillaxed a bit which was lovely.  Maybe I should have had one of the post ride massages on offer, but then I suppose I wasn’t properly post ride yet ;).  As we headed back to go we came across Gary who’d been there even longer, no surprise there.  That mechanical certainly didn’t hold him back!  There was no sign of Ollie, and as it turns out apparently he’d been all out of luck on the traffic light front, and then had an altercation with the back of the car.  No injuries, just a bike to be repaired before he could be on his way…sorry again Ollie!

This year’s ride turns out to have been a little slower than last year’s, though it felt harder.  Maybe the heat?  Mind you, you know how on Spinal Tap the dial goes up to 11?  Well these days my dial only seems to go up to 8 even if I’m pushing 10 through it.  However considering that I spent all day on Saturday being about as much use as a chocolate fireguard, and being literally incapable of doing anything, I should be less critical and just very pleased to have made it around at all.  Another very enjoyable Great Weston Ride done – in the best weather so far!  Definitely a good tradition – thanks to GB for putting up with me, as ever! 😀

  Cycling time: 3:17 hrs.
Distance: 56.0 miles.
Avs: 17.0 mph.
ODO: 3089.7 miles.

We cycled home in a slightly more leisurely fashion.  Not long into it I needed another gel and, as it turns out, so did GB, so I felt a little less pathetic ;).  It’s so nice to get home from an event at a reasonable and family friendly hour.  Early enough even for there to be time for me to have a shower and crash out for a while and still have enough of the day left to be up, about, and sociable afterwards.  It’s what I call a non-optional nap – I guess it’s the price you pay for the effort you put in from a tank that isn’t as full as it used to be.  One of the reasons driving home from a sportive has become a tad more hazardous!  And, duly revived, I finally got my hands on a pint of that cold wet alcoholic rehydration therapy that Clayton made look so attractive earlier.  Result. *grin*.

Cycling time: 0:38 hrs.
Distance: 9.8 miles.
Avs: 15.3 mph.
ODO: 3099.5 miles.

Last year’s Wiggle Magnificat didn’t go according to plan.  Read the blog, see for yourself, I won’t bore you with the details.  Well, to be fair, I probably will allude to them, but hey, it’s my blog.  So I had unfinished business, as it were.  Which is a ridiculous concept and a daft notion.  Like anyone cares whether or not I complete it.  It’s not like my DNF was my fault, unless you consider that my inability to fix a broken chain puts me at fault.  But it is what it is.  A thing I set out to do that I didn’t finish.  A little niggle lurking away in the recesses…

So I wanted to have a second crack of the whip.  Which is possibly appropriate, what with HQ being at Newbury Racecourse.  Having developed an inability to drive far without falling asleep, at fairly short notice I decided to find myself somewhere to stay the night before, if it wasn’t prohibitively expensive.  Which it wasn’t.  One family room at the Hilton Newbury Centre – £79.  They even rang me beforehand, due to demand, to check I was actually coming and would be using my room.  And since I was, would I mind swopping to a double room?  Which I did, having only booked the family one because it was the cheapest option.

Saturday was therefore a sort of leisurely broken up journey.  I went via The Mall at Cribbs Causeway, where I didn’t buy half of what I meant to but did end up with an outfit for a wedding I’m going to soon.  Result!  As was finding two more Gromits :D.  I then drove down the M4 to Newbury, in the sun, listening to very loud music which probably drowned out my singing, to the great relief of anyone in the near vicinity, but kept me happily awake all the way there.  By there, I mean HQ, as having printed out the pre-ride pdf, I’d registered that you could register the day before and I’m all for anything that makes a sportive morning easier.  I thought I knew where I was going, having been here last year (you got that right?) but as the event is under new management, there have been some changes.  The main one of which is the parking – which is now at the front of the racecourse, not the back, on grass and with plenty of space.  It’s still a bit of a trek to registration though – worth knowing for the real thing the next day.  You have to take your helmet with you – forgetting would be annoying, but there are plenty of signs to make sure you don’t.  I walked over, signed my life away in the usual fashion, got my timing stick stuck on my helmet, and got a High5 bottle full goodies to boot.  Good start – Hi5 gels are fructose free and the only ones I can tolerate.  In fact I even quite like them, especially the caffeine ones :).  And since they were going to be available at every food stop, I didn’t have to worry so much about how many to pack either.

OK, formalities done. I had a brief chat to Martin, one of the organising team, and headed back across the grass to my car.  As it turns out the Hilton was all of five minutes drive away.  Which, as it turns out, was possibly the only thing in its favour.  My room was fine but, like the whole of the hotel, devoid of air conditioning.  The window was ineffectively open, over an outdoor seating entry which was empty, as it’s only for use by those using the conference/event facilities.  So there was nowhere outside to sit anywhere.  Indoors the bar and lounge were all dark wood and mugginess, and although it’s not usual pre-event preparation, the only saving grace was the fact that the Stella was really cold!  I sat in the bar, reading Kindle books on my iPad, trying not to generate any more heat by moving around.  One ham omelette and chips (£12!) provided tolerable fuel.  I’d have like the healthy lemon and oregano marinaded chicken with steamed rice and grilled vegetables, but at £17, I think that was taking the p*ss…  Luckily a very good friend of mine, having discovered I was around via the wonders of Twitter, came over and kept me company for a bit which was very impromptu and very fabulous.  Hi Jo! :D.

I did try to get an early night.  We parted company at a reasonable hour and I headed back to my room, to discover that the function rooms were now hosting some form of celebration.  With a very loud disco full of people spilling out to outside, all right under my window.  Which then had to be closed, and proved as ineffective at keeping the noise out as it had been in cooling the room down.  Oh marvellous.  The festivities stopped around midnight, as they were supposed to, a fact I’d ascertained with a rather irritable phone call to reception, and I finally got to sleep.  I should have stuck to that family room – I bet those are further away from party central!  So, not an ideal start…but at least the alarm was set for 6:15am, not the much earlier hour that it would have been if I was at home.

Getting sorted in the morning was easy.  It was already too hot, I was riding for Cyclosport, voilà, kit choice done.  No need for any other layers of any sort, not even to stash just in case.  I packed up my stuff, and headed out to the car, by way of a Grumpy of Axbridge conversation with reception.  Five minutes later and I was in the slowly moving queue of cyclists in cars funneling into the racecourse and being marshalled into the car park and lined up in the sun.  Easy.  As was getting ready.  Put bike together, attach number, stash required food everywhere, and walk to the start.  Plenty of very respectable facilities, as you might expect, which I used, as you would also expect.  There are four routes – Epic, Standard, Short and Fun – all of which have a different ride start slot, which presumably helps spread out the load somewhat.  There was certainly no hanging around.  I rode across to the start, joined the group forming there, got a ride briefing from a not at all camera shy Martin, and was off at 7:25am.

Due to the hot weather forecast, I wasn’t entirely sure which route I was going to do.  I was down for the Epic, but decided that I’d see how I was feeling at the final route split, err on the side of caution if necessary.  I’d also decided that this was not a sportive.  It was an excuse to spend all day riding my bike in the countryside in the sun.  Nowhere else I needed to be, no-one at home waiting for me to get back (it’s a motor racing thing).  Just me, my bike, and I.  Which is not a bad attitude to be heading off with.

Having re-read last year’s blog, I thought I knew what to expect, but either my brain is faulty (distinctly possible) or they’ve significantly changed the route.  I was expecting a fair few hills early on, but after the first climb out of town, they didn’t materialise.  I guess the new management have changed things quite a lot, but not in a bad way.  The hills were my kind of hills, and all pretty spread out.  I think rolling is the best way to describe it, and I didn’t push it at all going up.  With the temperature rising all the time, I was very conscious of the need to not overdo it and pace myself over what could be going to be a very long day.  The signage was great, which considering I’d forgotten to download the gps file, was a good thing, and meant I could pootle around with worrying about getting lost.  Just as well, since mostly it was just me.  Occasional instances of APS, the same faces over and over again as we all played leapfrog, and the usual groups passing from time to time.  Oh look, I’ve been pelotoned.  It’s my new verb.  Is it a verb actually?  My English Language studies are a little rusty.  Whatever.  It is the verb to peloton, to be pelotoned.  You can do it, or have it done to you.  To pass as a part of, or be passed by, a large group of riders travelling at speed and slightly too close to other riders, resolutely not saying hello or warning anyone of their approaching presence.  Sound familiar? 😉

Having decided to opt for 2 500ml bottles today, so that they could be easily swopped over on the move rather than the usual decanting palaver, I was a bit concerned about keeping hydrated.  There were four official food stops, the first three were at around 25 & 50 & 73 miles in (ish).  There was then a big 40 mile gap until the fourth and final stop, which had me worried, and rationing my bottles…not ideal.  Thankfully the organisers had reacted and at very short notice, got a team and an extra food/fluid stop set up at around the 95 mile mark.  They also set the motorcycle outriders to checking that everyone had enough to drink and and dishing out water if they hadn’t.  All very responsive to conditions, very welcome and very wise!  I gather quite a lot of riders bailed on the Epic route precisely because they were over-heating.  Unsurprising when at some point in the middle here, my Garmin was showing 33C and the rest of the time it was 30+.  Blimey.  However the foodstops were all at proper venues, with toilets etc, where I resorted to my favourite method of cooling down – soaking my hair in cold water.  It works really well!  I also drank as much plain water as I needed too while topping up my bottles, and eating bananas and jelly beans.  There’s a lot to be said for stopping, the sweat pours out, and then evaporates away and cools you down as you get going again! :).

Hurricanes clearly hardly ever happen in Hampshire, as it turned out there are, blessedly, a great many shade creating trees.  Essential on a day like this.  In fact there was lots of green everywhere, interspersed by picture postcard villages, and chocolate box thatched cottages.  Way more than enough thatched cottages.  An elegant sufficiency perhaps.  It could also be called the Tour of Affluent Hampshire, demonstrating amply over and over again why I moved to Somerset and couldn’t afford to stay there.  The kind of houses it takes time to cycle past.  Properties that somehow aren’t NT owned which means there must be people out there rich enough to actually own and maintain them!  Beautiful gardens, full of flowers and floral scents; lavender, chamomile, honeysuckle, English roses.  If I was an English rose, I’d have to be a white one, not a red one, it’s an ancestry thing.  I’m arguably prickly enough to be one ;).  It was all very pretty, very nice, all day.  There were occasionally some very lovely views from the top of whichever rolling hill we’d climbed up, but for the most part, though scenic, it was sort of unremarkable.  More of the same.  Lots of England’s green and pleasant land, inhabited by the kind of people who sing that at the Last Night of the Proms, I imagine.  Put it this way, I saw at least four different Aston Martins.  I even got buzzed by one.  I should probably have been cross, but there’s always the chance that it’s Daniel Craig come to sweep me off my wheels and lay me down in a bed of roses right? Make the earth move, if not the sky fall? 😉  Besides which, I have a soft spot for sports cars, and the sound of a six litre V8 (or whatever) engine kicking arse always makes me *grin*…

Gradually the miles ticked away.  Broken up into eating intervals, food stops, time between food stops, miles to go, estimated time to go, all those mental coping games.  When the route split came, I wasn’t even tempted.   Because I wasn’t doing a sportive, I was riding my bike in the sun ;).  Being as I was making a point of trying to enjoy that, I had time to notice all the fantastic names for towns and places we went past along the way too.  Inkpen, Hell’s End Corner Farm, Craven Lodge, The Shoe, and Faccombe (sorry, very juvenile but it made me giggle)…  Even the hills along the way didn’t really bother me, though there seems to have been more climbing than it felt like to me.  Maybe I’m getting better at it?  Maybe it’s because whatever I was going up, it was neither as steep or as long as the Col de Marie-Blanque, and if I can do that, I knew I could do these.  Which is massively mentally helpful.  I do think they’ve made it the whole route bit easier, but I have no proof of that, I’m just sure I remember it being harder last year.  Towards the end, after that final and still welcome food stop, it flattened out, and I got faster, as usual.  Sprint finish time.  The Epic route had rejoined the Standard route now, and it was quite satisfying overtaking people knowing how much further I’d gone than them and that I was still going to beat them to the finish line.  Daft and petty I know :D.

As we got nearer the end, especially around Greenham Common, there was more traffic of both varieties, which was causing a degree of grief all ’round.  I let various cars past, including a silver Fiesta.  Having let it past, it turned out that she was such a cautious driver that she was holding everyone up trying to inch past cyclists…and eventually I was going faster than she was, having become stuck behind slower cyclists, and I had to overtake or, to be more precise, undertake her, overtake those slowcoaches and get on my way.  However when she eventually overtook me again, someone shouted obscenities at me out the window.  *sigh*.  Yes I’m a cyclist, and you’re a motorist, but to allude to roses again, and to Shakespeare and other very English things, how am I that different to you?  If you prick me do I not bleed?  So it’s ok for you to overtake me when I’m getting in your way, but not ok for me to do the same to you?  Same old, same old…the neverending conflict debate *yawn*.  I could easily have overtaken her several more times, but I held back a bit just to avoid the grief.  And hey, it’s not a race right? 😉

And then, 125 miles suddenly behind me, it was over.  I was dropping back down the hill into Newbury, back to the race course, and over the finish line.  I was given a medal and sample filled goody bag, as well as another gel for bringing my rubbish back with me and not dropping it on the course – which was a nice, and motivational, touch.  I didn’t see much rubbish out there on the road, so maybe it worked too!

My ride time was a little over 8 hours, which was better than I was expecting, and even with stops my official time got me a Silver.  FYI they only have three categories, regardless of age and gender – so it was a real bonafide Silver – not an old lady Silver!  Go me!  My unfinished business is now finished :D.

Cycling time: 8:05 hrs.
Distance: 125.2 miles.
Avs: 15.5 mph.
ODO: 2951.7 miles.