It sounded okay, 100 miles round the beautiful Cotswold
countryside, easy enough for someone who rides a bike and who regularly
clocks up 80+ miles on a Sunday ride! Well my goodness this
was much, much harder than I had anticipated and actually I think
harder than the ride in July in the Dolomites!!
I did a recce of the course on Saturday in torrential rain and high
winds and I must admit that seeing the rivers of water cascading down
the road and the extremely large puddles at the bottom of some of the
descents did nothing for my confidence levels. However,
Sunday dawned sunny and somewhat warmer, my spirits rose accordingly
and we set off in fine fettle.
The first part of the route was great, mostly flat roads gave the legs
a good warm up before the first climb which tested the lungs and got us
all into the climbing groove. The next two category climbs
went okay; Tysoe at about 1.5 miles long and nearly 200 metres was the
hardest so far with about 100 meters at 18%!
By the time we reached the first feed stop the nerves had settled down
a bit but I knew that I wouldn't be entirely happy until I had got the
Sudely climb over and done with! We were deep in the
Cotswolds now and the roads are never flat, you are always going up or
down and it always feels more up than down!!! After a serious
descent into Winchcombe and a quick refreshment stop we were ready to
tackle 'that hill'!
Col du Sudley started off fairly gently but soon tested the legs with a
1.5 mile stretch of between 17% & 18%, definitely an out of the
saddle effort here, many walkers on this one! However, other
than having to stop to draw breath I managed it without any walking
involved, for which I was mightily relieved!!
So now there were only two more category climbs ... Snowshill first
(1.5 miles/300 meters), harder than I expected but that could have been
because the legs were now getting tired, another stop to allow the
lungs to recover but again accomplished without walking, so now just
one to go.
With quite a lot more climbing before the last feed stop the legs and
back were definitely starting to complain, as the last feed station was
actually half a mile off the route (involving another climb!) we
decided not to visit and just had our own stop at the roadside to take
on water, energy gels and bars.
Approaching the last category climb we did a time check and decided
that as we were now extremely tired and getting slower by the minute we
would take the official diversion and miss out the Larkstoke
climb. This proved to be a very sensible decision as
unbeknown to us there was a lot more climbing to be done before we
reached the finish, in fact at this point even small inclines were
assuming much greater proportions and were becoming great mountains to
our tired legs!
A swift downhill finish took us over the finish line in 8 hours 35
mins, not anywhere near what our initial target had been but a finish
nevertheless. A hot cup of tea and post ride route discussion
completed what was a very satisfying day.
I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to Gail and Lisa for their support and
encouragement and in particular to Lisa who was with me every step of
the way and rode really well providing inspiration for me to get up
those climbs, without her it would have been so very much harder.
I am extremely touched at how generous my friends and colleagues have
been in support of my efforts to raise some funds for the Shakespeare
Hospice and I am very, very grateful to you all.
For those of you who like data ....
101 miles
7hrs 56mins riding time
8hrs 35mins total time
12.6 mph average speed
2034 metres of climbing
Hardest climb was Sudely Castle approx 4 miles long about 300 metres of
climbing with about 1.5 miles at 17%-18%
Best wishes
Barbara