This was supposed to be a weekend off.  Something to do with resting.  However it turned out that the rest of the clan were going to be off motor racing at Wiscombe, and if I was going to be home alone (camping and cars are not my thing) I might as well be riding the bike, right?  I did make one concession though, I decided to opt for the shorter of the two available routes.  Yes, I’m a proper cyclist, my idea of resting is to do the 60 miles route, not the 100 miler *grin*.  Various people were laying bets as to whether I’d stick to that plan, so it’s just possible that one of the reasons I did so was to prove them wrong.  Surely not.  That would be juvenile right?  However I did have better reasons – I have a lot of big events coming up, I’ve done a fair few events already, I haven’t eaten properly this week, I did East Harptree on Friday and didn’t need to do it again, and Ebbor Gorge with lots of other riders didn’t appeal.  Etc.  Still, the split point was at the top of Burrington Combe, so I had plenty of time to make up my mind, and it was still up in the air yesterday…

Right then.  Another local sportive, another practically civilised alarm call.  Once awake I ate my muesli and “granola” and pondered which layers to wear this time.  Just the usual degree of faffing then, which resulted in new shoes, socks, legwarmers, shorts, Galibier short sleeved jersey, long sleeved winter jersey, and Cyclosport gilet.  Turns out I got it spot on – my saddle bag remained resolutely closed all day, and the only things that moved clothes-wise were zips!

My chauffeur collected me a little earlier than usual, but was dramatically in need of coffee, which I most definitely had, so we left around 7:30am as planned.  HQ was at Gordano School in Portishead, half an hour’s easy drive away, and I bibbled away witlessly as usual, while a very hoarse GB got on with driving and blowing happy Premier League bubbles ;).  Marshals directed us into one of the school car parks when we arrived, and we headed off in search of registration.  This was easier said than done, there being no signs of any sort, leading to the amusing sight of a small group of cyclists following each other around like sheep, presuming that the one in front knew the way, as we looped back around to precisely where we started, and some bright spark finally asked the marshall at the gate which way we were actually supposed to be going…  Having trekked around to the start area, it was a further hike to the shower/toilet block, which was completely lacking in toilet roll, but was blessed with another female rider carrying tissues.  I did tell a member of the team of my way out, but his only suggested solution to that was that I go and tell someone else at reception, which I have to admit I didn’t do…and since I popped back there before we left, it was clear that no-one else got around to doing anything about it either.

The queue for registration was growing rapidly, probably because it was just one line being funnelled to the desks, which then actually had 3 different people working, depending on rider number as issued before the event.  Three queues would have worked better, and moved faster methinks.  The rider numbers had changed during the week before the start due to technical issues and not everyone had paid attention to this either, which probably wasn’t helping.

Once signed in, we were given a large brown envelope of stuff – two gels, fliers, etc and more importantly our numbers, which included timing chips, and had to be attached to the seat post, which is a new one on me, and wasn’t going down that well around me – the amount of clearance there is very variable and it could easily interfere with the brakes and wheels etc.  There were also 3 helmet numbers which seemed a tad overkill, especially as they didn’t do anything other than identify you.  I think my favourite systems are the ones with the chip in the rider number on the handlebars, or on one helmet sticker.  Far more user friendly.

Apparently the best pre-ride food is not bars, or gels, or special drinks, it’s Creme Eggs!  Maybe it’s a northern thing…

Once again you see, what with it being local ‘n all, there were plenty of people doing the ride that I knew.  Gary (as you can see), GB, Steve, Nick of Somerset Hills Gran Fondo fame, and my Dad, amongst others.  Mike and his son Matt were seen arriving too, if never again.  Practically an ACG outing, even if we weren’t all wearing the uniform.

Dad, Gary, Nick

Several groups had already been sent on their way, but there was an inexplicably long wait before we were being briefed and then underway, certainly not the every 5 minutes advertised.  Still, 8:50am and off we went.  Our little group got split up as they called a break in departing riders not far behind me, leaving my Dad behind us – oops!  Having been sent off as quite a large group, down the lanes of the Gordano valley, there wasn’t a lot of hurtling off, more a slightly leisurely warming up and slowly spreading out.  The first climb of the day was Failand Hill, which was more gradual than I recall it, followed by the fairly technical descent of Belmont Hill.  It’s wiggly, steep, with patches of distinctly dubious road surface, and cycling scuttlebutt after the event suggests that at least one rider came off going down…

We headed across the flat section towards the next climb, past Motivation Corner – a personal favourite of mine – which clearly called for a group photo.

Motivation is right, we were going left, as is ably illustrated by GB.  The original route had us going up the gradual climb that is Brockley Combe, around the airport and then down again.  Apparently however the road surfaces up there, combined with the nature of that particular descent, were considered to be unsafe at the moment so the organisers changed the route earlier this week and replaced it with Goblin Combe.  Which is a bit like taking a kitten and swopping it for a hyena.  Kittens are cute and fluffy and friendly, and a hyena would come as a nasty not at all cute surprise if you were expecting a kitten.  I could have gone with tiger, or lion, but even they are considered cute by some.  I prefer to think of them as majestic and Goblin Combe, whilst a nasty hill, is not an Alpe.  Which is why you got a hyena.  I hope we’ve cleared that up.  Besides, come to think of it, hyenas do have kind of lumpy hilly spines in profile, right?

In an attempt to explain away my relative sloth ascending the hyena, I did my usual multi-tasking thing, and took photos – always a good excuse.  The rider next to me reckoned having to watch me multitask was an equally valid excuse.  I liked his thinking :).

The bottom of the climb is steeper than you’d like, but constant, and then it ramps up for a bit, through some rather attractive trees, should you have time to be considering them on their aesthetic merits.

This was, as is often the case, followed by quite a nice descent.  Nice as long as you’re aware that it ends with a T-junction…many great descents are ruined thus!  There was a warning sign somewhere near the bottom, though I think a couple more earlier on might have been useful.  Another descent safely done, and Wrington, with bus to make it more interesting, negotiated.  As everyone knows, one Combe in a day is not enough, so it’s just as well Burrington Combe was next on the list.

Thankfully before having to go and climb that, it was time for the first food stop.

Contrary to the instructions issued beforehand, we were not allowed to use the toilets at the Burrington Café next to Bad Ass Bikes, where the stop was, which meant trekking all the way across to the public toilets at the bottom of the Combe, and back…not good in my shiny new cleats, that mean I walk like a duck just like everyone else now.  I was also a little surprised that Bad Ass Bikes was closed, you’d have thought this would be the perfect time to show off to potential customers.  Mind you I have heard a rumour that it’s for sale so maybe that explains it?

Walking back from the toilets...

Time to get back and eat, predictably as ever, a banana.  Yes, a whole banana, not half.  Get me.  Following some discussion, GB and I decided, shock horror, that we would both opt for the shorter route, leaving a far more hardy Nick and Gary to the longer route.  There – told you so.  I swear that actually made the climb easier, probably because I now knew that I definitely wasn’t going to be doing East Harptree and Ebbor Gorge so I didn’t have to spare my legs too much.

The route split after the top, with several repeater signs to remind you which route you were on, in case it wasn’t the route you were intending to be on.

We were on the right route which, knowing these roads as we do, didn’t come as a massive surprise.  It was proper windy up there, and a bit of a slog as we headed east, before taking the right turn that put the wind behind us for a little while, and pushed us onwards to the descent of Cheddar Gorge, where the wind was every which way but useful!

I’m possibly (probably?) a little strange, but I actually prefer climbing Cheddar Gorge to descending it.  Less scarey, less hazardous, and far easier to photograph as generally speaking I prefer to descend with both hands on the handlebars and ready to brake cautiously as necessary.  Still, that would hardly give you an idea of what it looks like, would it?, so I stopped briefly and took this…

…which turned out to be a mistake as I was then over taken by two 4x4s who were even slower than I was when it came to the bendy bits and who I had to sit behind, on the brakes, for most of the rest of the way down.  Boring!  Luckily GB had waited for me at Tweentown, otherwise I’d have been stuck doing the rest of the ride on my own.

There is something odd about doing a sportive that actually goes past your front door.  Not quite literally in my case, as we bypassed Axbridge due to some event or other preventing us going through it (news to me and I only live there!) but quite literally if you’re GB.  In fact his pit crew were even out waving flags in support as we went past his house and then down Winscombe Hill.  How cute is that?

The next section of the ride was pretty unremarkable, possibly because I know it so well.  Around the chilly, and wiggly back roads to Congresbury, through the ever traffic ridden Yatton, and then out round the lake lanes of Kingston Seymour to get to the seafront at Clevedon, complete with it’s very elegant and historic pier.  I should probably mention the annoying headwind that wouldn’t go away around all of this too.  I was very glad not to have an extra 40 miles in my legs and be facing that, and we spared a thought for those that would be facing it later.  In fact although we were going pretty well, I’m fairly sure there wasn’t an Harptree or an Ebbor Gorge in my legs today, so doing the shorter route was the right call all ’round.  That’s what instincts are for – listening to!

Anyway Clevedon was very pretty and very Victorian seaside, but it came garnished with rather too many people trying to either park along the seafront or cross between it and the various cafés and shops opposite it.  How dare they try and enjoy it at the same time as us, right? 😉  We climbed out the other side of the bay, and then were rewarded with a very lovely down to the road to Walton in Gordano.  That left us with just one last climb to do – up along the coast road to Portishead which, being on the way to my folks’ place, I’m more than a little familiar with.

This is GB going past the golf course at the bottom of the climb.  Apparently cycling is the new golf, and since there were precious few, if any, golfers to be seen, maybe that’s true?  Something to ponder during the nice long slow plod up along the coast which could have been a lot worse.  It has become traditional to take a photo showing the view from the Ship at the other end of the climb too.  If twice in two sportives that pass by it can be called traditional…

As you can see, it was a bit murky out there, and as we say in our family, someone had stolen Wales again *grin*.  I don’t think I’ve even descended Valley Road before and I enjoyed it so much I was almost tempted to go back up and do it again.  With the emphasis on the “almost” obviously.  From there there was no distance at all to be done to get us back to the start, or as I suppose it should now better be known, the Finish.  It wasn’t precisely clear where this was, as the signage seemed to vanish, but luckily having ridden in that way to the school from our car park to start the ride, we worked it out for ourselves.  We’re clever like that.

Cycling time: 3:41:08 hrs.  Official time: 3:59:33.
Distance: 59.15 miles
Avs: 16.1 mph.
ODO: 13817 miles

There was somewhat of an anti-climatic feel to the end of the ride.  As GB and I stood there at a bit of a loss, the timing guy came over and explained to us how to type in our numbers to get our timing slips, which I’m still liking, though it was a different company this time.  Turns out we made it in just under 4 hours including stops, which ain’t bad.  There were a few other riders loitering around, but there was no-one there to welcome you in, explain where to go and what to do next.  Being far from novices at this we guessed, and guessed correctly.

Bikes parked, we headed back towards registration where we checked in, and were given our free Black Rat glasses, all the better for putting our free Black Rat cider in.

Even though apples are on my banned list, I’m thinking it would be rude not to, right?  Well it’s eponymous and everything…  And besides, surely fermentation will have killed off anything bad, right? 😉

On that basis, I think I shall consider my glass half full…

I knew there was a reason I hitched a lift with GB and wasn’t driving…  It went down a treat too, although I may have had to top it up as it inexplicably evaporated ;).  The picnic tables and, let’s be honest, quite possibly the cider, made for a fairly sociable atmosphere in the long run, as more riders arrived.  There was chilli available, at £3.50 a portion though, and the rider sat with us for a while eating his reckoned it ought to have been free, considering the £25 entry fee.

As we sat there under inevitably brightening skies we were joined by various other riders, from one of our ACG own Steve, to Rapha man Duncan, and last but not least, Dad.  This meant I got to interview people slightly more properly for a change – which is going to make writing my official Cyclosport review far easier.  It also meant I knew Dad was back in one fairly happy piece too, which was reassuring, I didn’t really want to go home and leave him on his own out there :).  OK, so we left Nick and Gary, who were still out there, but we did pass Gary on his way in as we drove past Cadbury Garden Centre on the way home, so we knew he didn’t have far to go, and I’m sure Nick wasn’t far behind him.

If you’d like to see our route, you can check it out here.  However I kinda liked seeing the route laid out like this, it was a nice touch, and made a change from the many and varied route mapping sites I usually use.  Very old skool ;).

Time to go home, with enough Sunday time left to get some things done, not the least of which involved roasting chicken, jacketing potatoes, boiling beans of the green variety, making gravy, and drinking white wine.  A safe Sunday lunch, or make that dinner :).

UPDATE:  The official results were up online by first thing the following morning, and show me as 99^th of 219 100km finishers, and that’ll do me nicely.   It also turns out that Nick was actually marginally ahead of Gary and came in 13th.  Gary was 15^th.  Impressive!  You can see a couple of photos of me here, and my official cyclosport review is now up here, and I’m happy to say the organisers consider it to be a fair review :).

Being all signed in the day before, all I had to do on Saturday morning was get up, faff briefly about layers, and ride to the start line.  Due to the sun that was already shining, and the uncharacteristically optimistic forecast, I opted for a little less layerage than last week – socks, legwarmers, shorts, short sleeve Cyclosport jersey, winter jersey, mitts, and Cyclosport gilet.   Did I mention the sun?  Yes, sun!  Sun, on the morning of a sportive!  OK, so as I set off it was still pretty nippy, but when you’re on your bike, the sun is shining, and the sea is glowing blue in the distance…well, I think it’s safe to say there are far worse ways to start a Saturday morning :).  Oriel y Parc was no distance away and I was early.  There were only 3 (unisex) toilets, so there were some queuing issues, which is another reason being early was good.  As a result I was also right near the front of the queue for the start.  Sooner started, sooner finished, remember?

Oriel y Parc

queue for the start

After a brief welcome from Valero, the main event sponsors, and also the organisers, we were underway at 8:00am on the dot, with our timing lanyards scanned as we passed under the start banner.  Interesting that I’d never done the lanyard thing until last week and now I’ve done two events in a row using that timing method.  Same timing company actually.  And in case you were wondering, dangling timing chips still irritate me :).  Right then.  Off we go again, through the quiet streets of St Davids and out into the even quieter countryside.  The first half an hour was pretty flat which, if I hadn’t done the prologue ride last year, could easily lull you into a false sense of security.   It does mean you get chance to warm up your legs a bit, which is both nice and ,as it turns out, essential, because the route then drops down to the coast at Trefin, kicks up out of it again in a steep wiggle, and voilà, your climbing has begun.  Or, to be more precise, your climbing has only just begun.  The route was advertised as being 104 miles and c.2400 metres of climbing – so this was never going to be a flat ride.   Take that, and my previous experience, and forewarned is most definitely forearmed.  West Wales is lumpy!  Apparently I shouldn’t understate it like that either ;).  Having wiped out last weekend, and being as I was doing this ride on my own, I had already decided to approach it as a long day out in the saddle in the sun and not to push it, so I settled down to enjoy the scenery.

that's a lighthouse in the distance...

Two riders by the coast

Look at that sky!  The sea was the kind of blue that, if my youngest painted it that way, I’d probably tell her off for being unrealistic 😉  Just gorgeous…  About 15 miles in there was a timed hillclimb but since that involved a) stopping to be scanned at the bottom before going up and b) considering yourself to be competitive at any level, I gave that a miss.  The lady scanning at the top was warning everyone about the dangerous descent to follow, and she wasn’t wrong.  It was steep, wiggly, gravelly, and involved farms.  Just as well it was dry, and that I’d done it before.  I gather a couple of riders came a cropper going down there – less cautious souls than me I imagine.  Very shortly I’m going to lose track of which climb was which, because for most of this ride if you weren’t going down you were going up, and if you were going down, you almost didn’t want to be doing so for too long because you knew that payback would be just around the corner!  So bear with me if I get them a little muddled.

The first of five – yes five – foodstops was in a pub carpark in Fishguard, about 24 miles in.  Refreshments on the outside, facilities within – perfect.  I don’t ask for much really.  Half a banana ingested, one gilet stuffed in the saddle bag, time to go again, with many miles left to ride.

first food stop in Fishguard

One of the many nice things about this ride was the route card given to all riders:

route card before...

Every hill, every food stop, all marked out so you knew what was coming.  I checked it at each food stop, and thus knew that there were three big lumps between me and the next food stop.  It’s all part of making the ride mentally doable.  Counting the miles until the next food stop, the minutes until I next have to eat, calculating how far through I am – quarter, third, half, over half and on the way home.  Breaking it down into manageable chunks and avoiding looking at the bigger picture at all costs *grin*.

Talking of pictures…

That’s scenery that is.  And there was a lot of it.  Not easy to capture on my little camera, but I’ve tried.  Wales is not just lumpy, it’s big!  Time to go up in the world again…

That would be the view behind me – I’m practising taking those.  The less post production straightening I have to do the better!  It’s a bit of a challenge though…

And that would be the climb stretching off into the distance.  Time for some serious plodding.  Zips undone.  On and on and on…in pretty relentless fashion, but the views at the top were awesome.  And look at those cute fluffy clouds?  Not pink, but lovely nonetheless :).

I’d been here before on the preview ride, but very shortly that route and mine parted company, and I was off piste…off into unfamiliar territory.  Fear of the unknown?Still, you know what I’ve earnt now?  A bl**dy good descent – and I got one – wiggly windy and all the way to Newport, which we only really grazed.  No, not THAT Newport – this one.  Far more attractive.  Can you see the down coming…?

about to descend to Newport

So, as you can see, the sun is shining,  There wasn’t supposed to be much wind, but there certainly seemed to be enough cold air moving around.   And by around I mean usually being in my face.  Maybe it wasn’t wind, maybe it was coastal breezes, but whatever it was, they clearly get a lot of it up there!

It stayed on the nippy side all day really – just the right side to cool you down after the massive hills though.  Hills and headwinds – insult and injury ;).  I chatted to a fellow rider, also on his own, for a while at some point.  He was from Bridgend and this was his first sportive.  I had to point out that he’d picked a pretty impressive ride for his first one, but it was early days yet, and I’m not sure he believed me…  Slogging up yet another hill, into yet more wind, could be enough to get you a little depressed, but then you go down a bit, around a corner, and this is waiting for you:

Does it get much better than that?  Just gorgeous.  I know I’ve been known to joke about metaphorically stopping to enjoy the scenery, as an excuse to take a break, but really in this case it was the view I stopped for.  Outstanding.  And very smile generating :).  Did I mention I love the seaside?  Time to move on, somewhat reluctantly, and head for the next feed stop.

As you’ll have gathered, that would involve a left turn, to the very cutely named Poppit Sands, where the food station was down on the beach at the RNLI base there.  Generally speaking the signs were pretty good – there was a mixture of these small ones and some very large ones – black arrows on luminous yellow.  There were a few places where a CAUTION sign would have come in useful, and a couple of places where more signs would have been good.  The main shortcoming was the route split signs which were mostly handwritten black on white, which is fine for “loose road surface” warnings when you’re going slowly and have time to pay attention, but they’re not what you’re looking for when you’re flying along and your eye is tuned to look for yellow/black signs.  Quite a few people ended up doing routes that they hadn’t intended to…but luckily I wasn’t one of them.  Plus the gamin file was accurate so if it had happened I’d have been able to rectify things.  Unlike last weekend.  Anyway, back to the course 😉  46 miles and another half a banana under my belt.

second foodstop

the sands at Poppit

There was, unusually, a small amount of flat riding alongside the river here (ooh, the novelty) as we headed inland to find some more hills to climb.  Can’t follow the coast forever…

If I recall correctly, as it all blurs into one,  the next section involved some fairly long steady climbing through dappled woodland roads.  I picked up a hanger on for a while, I even passed the odd person.  You know how it is, you climb at your own pace and that is what it is.  By the time we reached the third foodstop at a very tempting country pub in Boncath, it was definitely time for some sartorial adjustment.  Time for the leg warmers to come off – job more than done – and for my legs to come out.  Woo hoo!  So that’s leg warmers stashed in the ever-expanding saddle bag, another half a banana eaten, and a seriously wistful backward glance at the pub garden…  At least this was 58 miles in, so the halfway mark had come and gone, seeing another mental hurdle overcome.

third foodstop at Boncath

Having checked my route card once again i knew that the really big climb of the day was coming up next (like all the others were little!) – over the Prescellis, which I probably can’t spell.  When the hills you’re climbing up have burial mounds and cairns on them, it’s a safe bet that you’re a long way up…and since it’s probably a climb of around 6 miles or so, you’ve still got a long way to go.  I was worried it would be too steep for me – I definitely have a gradient threshold – but it wasn’t.  It was most certainly hard work though!

It just kept going up.  Every time you turned, there was more up to go.  They have more than enough up to go around over there!

I distracted myself by taking photos, and doing my best to remember I was supposed to be enjoying the day out, so I admired the ever expanding scenery, the wheels went around, and the hill got climbed.  Or owned as my eldest would put it.

I had a brief internal Titanic moment – an “I’m the king of the world” kind of thing – as I briefly stopped at the top, along with others, to appreciate how far I’d come.

I had.  And I have.  Once upon a time, not so long ago, a hill like that would have killed me…and today it didn’t :).  This was the highest point on the Tour, and although there was a still a chunk of miles to do, and a fair bit more climbing, it definitely felt like I’d broken the back of the ride.  And then you get to go down…*grin*.  There were some cracking descents on this ride – some of which were a little too technical for me to enjoy, but others were just awesome.  My max speed was 40.5mph which, for me, is pretty exceptional, and it felt even faster than that!  Maybe this sign applies to me?

Considering that the Welsh highways authority must spend twice as much on road paint as anywhere else, what with having to mark everything in two languages, this sign is probably illegal and should say “Cyclists Slow Araf”…  There’s something about seeing ARAF in big letters on the road – I think it reminds me of previous Welsh rides – always hilly and always hard work!  In a good way.  Honest ;).

More views, more climbing, before discovering the fourth foodstop lurking in a sheltered valley at Pontfaen, where a rather fat chocolate labrador was roaming around in the hope of grabbing leftovers from cyclists who were far more interested in feeding themselves than a dog *grin*.  78 miles in, if you’re counting…

fourth food stop at Pontfaen

The radio was playing in the background, playing “Beautiful Day” by U2 as it happens, in remarkably appropriate and oddly coincidental fashion.  A few of the riders here had missed the route split, and had ended up doing the long route instead of the medium one.  Given the weather they didn’t seem too cross about it, but wow, if you hadn’t trained for it, that was going to hurt!

As I carried on my way, we joined back up with the shorter routes, which also put me back on familiar turf.  It’s amazing how much you remember.  The flat fast stretch through the valley was still fun, and the long steep climb out of it was still exactly that, except that this time I didn’t fall off and have to walk – bonus!

moor views..see what I did there? 😉

OK, so holding the camera straight was getting harder.  The advertised 2400 metres of climbing had come and gone, and there was still up going on.  Maybe not massive ups, but still…  There were three of us now.  I’d somehow ended up with Bridgend man again, who ruefully agreed that I hadn’t been joking when I said it was a hilly ride, and just by the way his arse was in tatters.  And apparently I’m allowed to quote him on that *grin*.  Our third musketeer was another lady rider – there only were 19 of us – also bizarrely doing her first sportive.  Well that’s one way to make me feel like an old hand I suppose.  We reached the last food stop, at 89 miles in, to be greeted by Father Christmas.  No, I have no idea why either.

fifth foodstop at Letterston

Bridgend rider

That left us with 15 miles to do, hopefully around an hour or so’s riding, which I knew was essentially rolling.  To be fair, that doesn’t mean flat though, and at that point, any sort of incline most definitely feels like a climb!  We rolled together, more or less, for quite a while, though we did split up from time to time.  The lady behind me apologised for using my wheel to get home but hey, such things are karma, and what goes around comes around.  After a while she perked up a bit and we chatted some.  Apparently I made the hills look easy and just glided up them.  If I’d had the energy I’d have fallen off my bike laughing *grin*.  That has to be the funniest thing ever…but as compliments go, I’m keeping that one.  I may even frame it.  With about 8 miles to go I started to get hints of feeling like I was losing it again.  I had two choices – MTFU, stick with the guys, pretend to be in control and get back or…be sensible.  I was sensible.  I dropped back, and ate a packet of my lucozade jelly beans.  Judging by how good they tasted I must have really needed them – they were bloomin’ lovely.  I span my legs for a while and gave them time to cut in, which luckily they did.  At least having had it happen once, I can now recognise the feeling and deal with it early, right?   As I got my act back together, I found myself leapfrogging another rider – let’s call him Altura guy – and once this had happened a couple of times, we started doing it properly, taking turns at the front, and generally making those last few miles that bit more pleasant.  Oh, and easier too! :).

an Altura wheel to follow

The last little loop takes you teasingly around and away from your goal, which you can see but not touch, so as to bring you back into St Davids from the bottom with a last little kick of a hill past the Cathedral and through the very gatehouse that I walked through yesterday.  A very scenic and attractive way to do it.  Just as well I knew it was coming though – last minute hills are not good! 😉

There wasn’t time to take a better photo – otherwise I’d have ended up riding into the Gatehouse not under it, which would have been a tad embarrassing.  Good thing I got decent photos yesterday :).

Right.  Job done.  Getting to the finish line was but a formality now, but it was nonetheless a welcome sight.  I was the 74th rider in apparently.  Timer chip scanned, number clipped off for me (nice touch that), and once both were handed in, I got my time slip again, a voucher for a free bowl of cawl, and a lovely Welsh slate commemorative coaster.  Both attractive and useful – definitely one up on another medal or water bottle!

Cycling time: 8:01:56 hrs
Distance: 105.38 miles
Avs: 13.1 mph.
ODO: 13694 miles

Official time: 8:35:15 – 98th of 167 finishers. 9th of 19 women. Bronze.

As you can see, my route card looks a little less pristine now…I think I may have perspired on it whilst it was stuck in my back pocket *grin*.

You know what’s even better than a sportive that’s just on your doorstep and an easy drive away?  One that’s quite literally up the road, that you get to ride to and back, without adding more than a couple of miles each way to your trip.  Welcome to the Somerset Hills Gran Fondo.  Being as it’s a VERY local sportive, I wasn’t the only one doing it so, and, it’s getting better all the time, I even had company.  A very pleasant change to recent routine.  Of course before meeting them I had to eat carbs, and fret about layers.  2 out of 3 forecasts that expressed a preference said it was going to be cold, grey, but dry and not windy.  One of them said warmer and sunnier.  Being as that was what I wanted, but know better than to expect, I went with the other two.  I’m fed up of being cold!  So socks, shoes, overshoes, leg warmers, shorts, l/s jersey, winter jersey, and for good measure, my Cyclosport gilet.  It may sound a lot but…

Me, an unexpectedly present GB, and Gary met in the Square at 7:10 and headed off to Broadway Caravan Park to sign in.  Blimey it was nippy out there!  So far my sartorial choices were good ones!  We were amongst the first there, so the queue was negligible, and actually there weren’t yet that many other riders around full stop.

Sign on

We signed in, and were given our timing devices – which this time around were timing chips on lanyards to be worn around the neck and scanned in at each feed station.  For those leaving straight away they were scanned there and then and off you went.  I needed to do the usual pre-ride faff and use the facilities (as ever the ladies was free and there was a queue for the gents – is that positive discrimination ;)).  We headed for the start, ready to get scanned and on the road, only to find that the lady required was still back at sign in, so I had to back track, get scanned, and then head off.  Not a big problem when there’s only a few riders around, just minorly irritating, but I think when there were more, she’d have been better off standing by the exit…  While I’m at it – not loving the lanyard things.  Unzipped layers mean the darn thing kept dangling around and having to be tucked away.  I like the being scanned at every stop though – means you can’t switch from the Gran route to the Medio without anyone knowing, which must make sorting out the times easier.

Right, off we go.  I got half way into Cheddar before remembering to start Bella off though – ‘doh!  Time for GB to take us up the Gorge.  I swear he only manned up and came out so to do *grin*.  And he still made it look easy!  He’s the one furthest away from me…unsurprisingly.

Me, going up the Gorge

Cheddar Gorge gets included on every Somerset sportive.  Which is great, I appreciate that it’s iconic and all that, but it’s not actually the most challenging climb in the world.  Some of those that were to come later in the ride are/were far worse!  So we pootled our way up the Gorge.  Clearly I’d usually sprint my way all the way to the top, but considering the length of the ride, I thought it best to pace myself…;) *grin*.  We picked up another rider along the way – Nick from East Harptree – who was allowed to join us as he was wearing the male ride uniform of the day (see above) and thus blended in perfectly – what’s black, white, and red all over? ;).  He also won a place in our elite ranks by taking a turn at the front with me as we headed across the Mendips towards the descent to Rodney Stoke.  A little more climbing…

…a quick stop to take in the stunning views of the Levels to the south…

…and time for the first decent descent of the day, watching out for gravel and traffic, all the way to the main road at Rodney Stoke.  Nice 🙂  The guys had waited for me, and we posse’d up and headed off over extremely familiar roads to Wedmore and out through to Blackford.  This is when GB decided he’d made his point, he had done the MTFU thing, however advisable that may have been, he’d seen if he could, and he could, so it was time to make the right decision and head for home.  I’m glad he came out to play, it’s been a while, but I’m also glad he went home and didn’t do any more damage 🙂  So then there were three.

We headed out through Mark, which is reputedly the longest village in the country.  This may well be true.  I’m not going to argue.  Cycling through it certainly seems to take a while.  One of the publicans who initially introduced me to cycling called it a “mother-in-law road”.  Because it goes on, and on, and on… 😉  Which it does!  From there we headed across the flats to the Woolavington climb, and then the descent into Hell.  Aka Bridgwater.  Suburban roads and obstacles and plenty of traffic even at that time of the morning, though less than sometimes.  I think it was a bit early for most of the residents.  We were even heckled by a white haired lady pedestrian, which is not unusual for Bridgwater, but this time she was saying “Up the Cyclists” which has to be a first!  Go that woman – bucking the Bridgwater trend!

Time to head for the next big climb of the day – Enmore Hill.  Crawler mode engaged…  I’ve been up here a couple of times but I’m far from familiar with it, other than knowing that I can get up it without walking.

It’s not a constant climb, more of a three steps up, one step down, affair, and as a whole apparently goes on for 10k.  I guess that depends on where you consider the start and finish to be though.  I knew we were heading for the first food stop at The Pines Café, which came sooner than I expected since I vaguely remembered it being right at the top of the climb, and it wasn’t quite.  35 miles in, and it was definitely time for a quick break.

Sadly the café was closed, which meant so were most of the facilities, and I had to use the gents, which even though I’d waited until it was apparently clear, probably gave the non-cyclist who’d sneaked in there when we weren’t looking a bit of a shock!  Hey, needs must…*grin*.  Half a banana later, a quick photo of Nick, and it was time to be on our way again.

Nick Howard

It wasn’t the top of the climb, we had some more up to do.  The sun had been coming out for a while and at the stop, after the heat generated by that long climb, I’d contemplated removing layers.  I’m glad I didn’t because it was just as chilly as ever setting off again!

Rays of yellow...

There was a lovely descent to follow down Constitution Hill, which could have used a couple of “CAUTION” signs due to the bends, gravel, and the fact that cars go up it when you’re trying to go down it!  Luckily I’m a cautious soul…but that didn’t stop the white van and blue car coming the other way as I went around the sharp right hand bend half way down giving me a bit of a shock!

Shortly after this we came to the route split.  Left for us, as Gary had decided to switch from the Medio to the Gran to keep me company (thanks Gary!), and right for Nick, doing his first ever sportive.  And then there were two.  We had some nice pottering through pretty villages and across expanding countryside, before the next big climb.  I had been blissfully unaware of this one, having completely failed to do my usual level of research, but Gary was far better prepared so at least I had a little warning.  And the long climb up to Exmoor is a doozy!  8k at 15% ish, and then 8k at 10/12%.  Lovely…well, doable.  Long enough to get into my climbing rhythm and just get on with it.

me and my shoulder...

The views behind were stunning and luckily, as we headed towards Wheddon Cross, we got some that we could actually look at as we went along, although as you can see, it was a little hazy out there.

view over the Bristol Channel

There seemed to be an unfeasible amount of going down to the bottom of the valley that took us to Dunster.  A valley that was, rather unfortunately, also acting as a remarkably efficient wind tunnel!  What with that wind coming from the North East, and having properly cooled down coming down, I was freezing again by the time we got into Dunster.

Dunster Church. And traffic.

Dunster was as popular as ever, full of people not looking for cyclists, so it was a case of handle with care and get out the other side, from where you get a good view of the castle.  Dunster Castle, unsurprisingly.  A real, National Trust owned, honest to goodness castle.  Not like ours 😉

I wasn’t quite ready to take the bus though…;)

This put us on the A39 for a bit, which wasn’t ideal, as it can get pretty busy down there.  The next food stop was looming, in Blue Anchor, the left turn sign for which was partially obscured, but luckily we spotted it.  And then suddenly there was a big climb looming ahead.  No fair – I wasn’t expecting that!  Ah well…  Gary decided such things would be best tackled after answering nature’s call, so I waited for him at the top and took his photo, amongst others, to pass the time.

Gary Humphries

The second food stop was on the sea front at Blue Anchor, in the sun, with the seaside, and everything.  They’d also negotiated the use of the toilets at the nearby café, which was handy.

It was 65 miles in by now, and we took a slightly longer than usual breather, as I was feeling the need for one, but it wasn’t long before we were back following those signs.  I had the route on Bella, but Bella, along with various other people’s gadgets, had been yelling “off route” on and off all day so when she started doing it again, I pretty much ignored her, and we headed off up the long climb out of Watchet and rejoined the A39.

Me on the climb out of Watchet

Shortly after this things went pear shaped.  Turns out we, and many others, missed the right turn that would have taken us up Crowcombe Hill.  Looks like the locals had been “helping” again…  By the time we’d worked out that yes, we knew where we were, but that no, we were not where we were supposed to be, it was easier to carry on and rejoin the route that way than retrace our steps.  The mileage looked to be much the same, and hey, I’d been dreading that particular climb all day, so I guess fortune had decided not to favour the brave for a change, but to shine on me instead ;).

views inland from the coast road

I’ve been known to wonder what it would be like to cycle along that particular stretch of road, having driven it many times, and now I know.  Swoopy, and quite enjoyable, as it turns out.  The same cannot be said for about the following hour or so of riding.  From Cannington, where our route and the official one merged and all our Garmins beeped their satisfaction simultaneously, into Bridgwater again, through the chaos again and then out the other side on the rather scary and not busy enough to slow the traffic down dual carriageway back to the M5 junction.  Not fun.  A tad scary from time to time to be honest.

the highway from hell...

At least we had our signs back again, right?  Nice big signs that were, mostly, pretty unmissable.  A few more repeater signs wouldn’t have gone amiss on long stretches, and also few more signs at the worst or most important junctions.  A lot of the signs were put up high to avoid those pesky kids meddling, but then if your head is down, or you’re temporarily distracted, you can easily miss those, especially if there’s only one of them.

Right, 95 miles in, and the next, and final food stop, came after the relief of a left turn before the motorway junction, as an artic and trailer thundered past me…*shudder*.  Having three food stops definitely helps break the ride up into more manageable chunks, and it would have been even better if the third one had had obvious toilet facilities too, but two out of three ain’t bad 🙂   From here on in, being back on home turf, I knew that the terrain was essentially flat, and there was only 20 miles to go.  How hard could it be, right?

Well even though the website written description had said Burnham on Sea, Bleadon, Axbridge and back…the .gpx and the signs said we had to go through some fairly unpleasant and major roads through Highbridge and then briefly along the A38 just to make us go over Brent Knoll.  Which struck me as a tad gratuitous.  At least there were some perfectly presentable public toilets on Brent Street before I had to tackle it.  I prefer the hill the other way around, but actually it was ok.  Ok considering that I had a great many miles already in my legs.  Not ok by any other standards you might use.  Hey, I got up it right?

Several other riders went past asking respectively for new legs, their mother, and a new hobby… 😉  Good to see we all still had a sense of humour *grin*.

Brent Knoll up close and personal

Not far now…a bit more flat, and then the all too familiar climb past the Webbington where, to make it more interesting, I got the camera out again.  Poor Gary… 😉

And here’s Brent Knoll from afar.  We went over that.  Well, actually, over some of it, it’s more like up and over one side, before i go over-egging the cake.

Right.  Home straight.  We are nearly there yet 😉  Down t’other side, no horses this time, and through to Cross and the junction with the A38 – another place a “CAUTION” sign would have come in useful.  I dismounted, as is essential there, and realised I was absolutely totally geknackert.  Not a problem, as we were nearly there.  Right?  Wrong.

We crossed over and started the climb up towards the bypass, and I dropped off the back like a stone.  Lost it completely.  Gary headed off into the distance, and I tried to remember how to make pedals go around.  And how to stay on the bike.  And why, even when I’d finally reached the going down the bypass bit, albeit with headwind, getting anywhere was so hard.  It was the most bizarre feeling.  I guess I bonked.  Not something that’s ever really happened before.  And it’s just as well it didn’t happen any earlier as I’m not sure what I would have, or would have been able to have, done.

I limped, metaphorically, up to the Finish, got my time swiped, and went and sat on a bench before I actually fell over.  And I’m not even joking.  I dread to think what colour I was – I do a good ghost impression at the best of times!  It took me a few minutes to get it together enough to go see Gary and hand in my timing chip.  Luckily, rather than head straight for home, which I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to do, Gary fancied chips and was kind enough to buy me some too.  Best.  Chips.  Ever.  Just because I could feel them helping me climb up the stairway back to normality.  Shame the same cannot be said about the quality of the coffee…but it probably helped regardless.

waiting to scan riders at the Finish

Cycling time: 7:10:11 hrs
Distance: 109.8 miles
Avs: 15.3 mph.
ODO: 13536 miles

This is what Bella has to say for herself, and this is my official time card, which was a nice touch.  No waiting for some website to post them for a change :).  Since we weren’t wearing numbers, identifying who’s who on the photos when they go up could be interesting though.

Once I’d pulled myself together, which took a while,  I introduced myself and had a nice long chat with t’other half of the organiser, David, who was busy being told by everyone what a great event they’d had, which must have been nice.  390 riders had done the ride, a long way up on last year’s 89 for sure!  She was very friendly and chatty, and actually seemed genuinely interested in what I’d thought, which is nice.  Positive criticism taken that way can only help make the event bigger and better :).

Sue Moore

Oh, and by way of a post script, my layers choice was right.  I may have been a little hot occasionally, but the cold always came back and, other than stashing my gilet after Watchet, I was sorted :).  Furthermore I have completely forgotten to mention that today was the first time Gary has done over 100 miles!  And he didn’t even look tired, or like any of it was hard work – the man is a machine! *grin*.  Well done Gary – and many thanks for keeping me company, I really appreciate it :).

UPDATE: there were 190 riders on the Gran Fondo, of which 7 DNF, and I came 98th overall and 5th of the 13 women who did it.  Not bad!  And better than I thought actually :).  Photos are going up, and my blue legwarmers have made me easy to find, so I’ve added in a couple of me above at the relevant places, just to prove I was there.   There’s a lot to be said for free downloadable photos :).  Official review is now up at Cyclosport.