14th
83.0kg
The ‘sportive’ was interesting.
The weather report said it was going to be foggy early and then turn warm and sunny. I did pack some arm warmers thinking I could just roll them down when the sun came out. At the start it was raining, I slapped on a load of embrocation and set off in our group.
The route took us through some crappy urban parts of London/Essex and it was all a bit frantic with people all over the place. Within minutes the pack had split and the fast boys (hippy included) romped off into the distance. More and more people went off the front or off the back until it was just myself and purple_mj the legendary Rollapaluza member who rides some serious mileage on his Ti Condor Fixed. We rode mostly side by side in the pouring rain for 35 miles, rjs was with us some of the time but would disappear now and again. Some of the roads were sketchy, the real slippery ones weren’t too bad for me (due to the superb Challenge Tubs no doubt) but I was concerned on the gravel and dirt tracks.
We stopped at the feed station I felt a little odd, light headed, freezing cold legs, I ate some bananas and filled my bottles. We carried on losing rjs within seconds of leaving the feed.
There is a joke that I can only ride 50 miles. Well at exactly 50 miles my legs started to hurt. Not hurt in a good ‘I’ve been hammering along’ way, more a ‘you are going to get cramp in a minute’ kind of way.
Sure enough I got cramp so bad I had to get off the bike. Both hamstring and quad cramped at the same time and I just stood there until it went on, too scared to move. I carried on for another couple of miles stopping at the BP station for a bag of Quavers and a can of Coke (I figured any chance of a quick time was over, so I treated it like a training ride). The salt and sugar helped me a lot and I passed lots of people on the final draggy climb to come in about 15 minutes after purple_mj.
I said goodbye and went to McDonalds.
I’m not sure I enjoyed myself, although it was nice having a chat with team mates. The countryside was boring, the roads mostly flat. My knees really hurt and I feel a little bit broken like you do when you’ve had the knock. I think if I was to do another sportive I’d probably workup to the mileage as I really don’t do longer than 50 miles when training as my races are either 10/25 mile time trials or 40 miles crits.
