Travel Arrangements Sorted

We drove to Pau last year and although it's definitely doable with two sharing the driving, it's very tiring and certainly not ideal preparation for the biggest bike ride of your life. Anyone who has ever flown with me knows that I'm not a great flyer. It has been known for me to cry out on flights and on one particularly windy flight, the air steward sat next to me and held my hand as we were landing. I could have got over all of that with a stiff drink or two though. What puts me off about flying to the Etape is the slim possibility of losing my bike - I heard a few stories last year of lost bikes and I'm just not prepared to take the tiny risk of a lost or damaged bike. So, that leaves us with the train. I've now booked our tickets on Eurostar. We go on Saturday from Ashford, very early in the morning, and travel direct to Avignon. It takes about 5 hours. I like the fact that we can take two suitcases each, one of which can be a bike bag, and can be stored right next to us on the train. Next job is to sort out a bike box. CRAP! I just thought - how do you take the bike apart and get it together again? Is it just wheels off (can manage that) or is there a lot more to it than that? I think that the Etape DVDs have something about packing your bike. I'd better have a look.
We're going to hire a car from Avignon and it's an hours drive to Montelimar. I suspect that Saturday will just be about finding the campsite, getting some food and settling in. If we make good time, perhaps we will go to register.
On Sunday, I think that we'll have to take our car to the finish village and get the bus back. I will need to book at place on this bus.
Is that it for logistics? I can't think of anything else.

I'm checking for my number regularly now. There is already one Popplewell entered.

Brian Robinson Challenge 2009

I woke before the alarm clock at around 6am and headed straight downstairs for a mammoth bowl of porridge. While the rest of the house slept on, I silently dressed, made up bottles, checked and rechecked all my kit and then loaded the bike onto the roof rack and was on my way to Huddersfield by 7am. I always feel a shiver of nerves mingled with excitement when I drive to a sportive; leaving the flat of Cheshire behind and moving into an altogether hillier landscape. When I see the horizon getting lumpier, I know that at some point in the day, I'm going to be going up that and it's a good feeling.

Registration, bike unloading, more bike checking, filling my pockets with all my gear (bags of PSP22, gels, clif bars, light-weight coat - I always seem to be loaded up like a pack horse - how do some people just seem to have a mini bike pump sticking out of their back pocket?) all followed and then it was down to line up for another new experience - the mass start. Before setting off, we had a brief safety talk and then a speech from Brian Robinson himself. To be honest, being a newcomer to cycling, I had never heard of him until entering his sportive, but he spoke well and with humour, albeit quietly, about how he had started his cycling career training on some of the hills that we were about to tackle. He wished us a good ride and seconds later, the motorbikes started up and we were off. 400 of us starting together wasn't bad at all - everyone was really sensible, no mad haring off to get to the front - and we were soon on the open roads and onto our first climbs.



The first two climbs were tough; great long slogs up with some reasonably steep gradients. The sun was out and I was getting a bit hot under the collar and beginning to regret the base layer; wishing I'd gone for arm warmers. The climbing was going well though - I was just plodding along at my own pace, being overtaken frequently, but amazingly, I was doing my fair share of overtaking as well. The descents were awesome - long, straightish roads with excellent visibility set within beautiful green rolling hills and olde worlde villages. I love descents where you don't have to worry about the brakes and the speeds you reach (44.5 mph - a new record) are a great pay back for all the work you just did to get to the summit. But hey!! whoever spat on my arm (40mph spit), watch where you're gobbing man!

At feedstop 1, I quickly refilled a bottle, got rid of some gel wrappers (I was on powerbar and had already had 2), sorted my gear out and was on the road again within a few minutes. We were now into rolling countryside and amazingly, I met Rich from Timperley! It was great to finally meet - he was setting a good pace and we managed a quick chat, exchanging Etape stories etc, until we hit the hills again and then I just managed to hang on to his wheel. I was sorry to lose Rich at this point - must have been the time I spent trying to descant PSP out of a freezer bag into a bottle. This is a really fiddly and time consuming task - I really must come up with a more elegant solution before my next sportive.

Next followed a long, long, windy slog over some particularly bleak moorland. God, that was hard work. The wind just sapped my energy and I started to feel some pain. I realise that my Gore 3/4 shorts are a 4 hour pair of shorts - beyond that, my tender bits started to get even more tender and sore - and are ruled out as my Etape shorts. Competing with that pain was the headache, which I always seem to get on a long ride. I was also suffering from a really bad stomach ache, which I still don't feel that I've recovered from. What can you do though? you just have to keep on going. You know that at the end of the climb is going to come a descent and a bit of recovery so you keep on turning the pedals and you get there.

Before the ride started, I was really hoping to finish within 6 hours 30 mins to get a bronze award. As time went on, I saw that under 6 hours might be possible and that thought really spurred me on and allowed me to continue pushing on those final few ascents. I felt a shadow of cramp moving over my right calf but managed to ward it off with a few stretches on the bike. I thought the ride was 76 miles so when that distance had come and gone, I was worried that we were in for another Cheshire Cat-like experience and wondered just how many miles were left. My final distance for the day was 77.5 miles. I finished in 6 hours and 47 seconds - well inside the bronze time and nearer to the silver time. I was absolutely buzzing!

I went for a post ride bite to eat in the rugby club. I met a lovely lady called Lorraine - we had similar stories, both married with children, started cycling two years ago, doing sportives on our own, had health scares last year and now doing the Etape in 2009. I hope we bump into each other again on the Polka Dot Challenge.

I was so chuffed with my time and left feeling really confident for the next Sportive - The Etape Caledonia in Scotland. I love riding sportives - they are always such an adventure. You're cycling, thinking, working things out, thinking what you have to do next to get yourself in a good position, constantly checking in with yourself to see if things are going to your plan, pushing yourself to your physical limits, experiencing some moments of pain and wondering what the hell you are doing on top of a hill in Yorkshire, experiencing moments of exhilaration and elation when you descend at 42mph and finally finishing and knowing that you've got through it all and you've achieved something.

Some stats:
Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s) 6:00:50 4:38 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s) 5:43:17 4:25 pace
Distance (mi ) 77.60
Average Speed (total) 12.9mph
Moving Speed (mph) 13.6 avg. 44.9 max.
Elevation Gain (ft) +10,462 / -10,384

Avg. Heart Rate 131 bpm
Calories: 5404

Food: 4 bottles PSP22, 10%, 5 Powerbar gels

Improvement areas:
Investigate faff-free ways to get powder into bottles
As PSP supply has run out, good opportunity to try different powder to hopefully avoid stomach problems
Get a decent pair of arm warmers.
Time to take the plunge and buy the new Assos shorts - I deserve a treat :-)

Getting ready for Brian

I had a couple of very, very light weeks following the Cheshire Cat - surprising how much that took out of me actually. By last week I was starting to feel back to normal again and was able to put in a 9 hour week. We were away in Cornwall for the weekend - Colin was taking part in the North Cornwall Tor - so I did the short course as a training ride on the Saturday. I planned the route on my Garmin 305 but got lost so many times that I have decided to go for a 705 - there are some junctions where you need to see that underlying map to know which of the roads is the right one. The scenery around there is stunning and I loved the route - particularly the marshy bit on top of the moor where the ponies were standing all around the road.
For the last week I've been tapering in preparation for the Brian Robinson Challenge tomorrow. I'm feeling great at the moment - the hills in Cornwall were hard but didn't feel too bad at all to me - and Joe has advised me to reign myself in and save it all for on the course tomorrow. So, it's been light spins with just a few short intervals and lots of pasta over the last few days.
In the past I have found it difficult to maintain adequate fuel intake on a hilly course. I don't like eating on descents as I like my hands on the brakes and on the ascents, I'm just trying to get up without falling off. I've analysed the course profile and looked at the best times in the ride to take on board solid food or gels. I'm going to be taking 60g of carb per hour again and this is going to mean 5 bottles and probably 6 gels. I hear that there is flapjack and banana at the feed stations, located at 25 and 50 miles, so I may dip into those in small amounts if I feel that I need to. (I'm actually starting to fear for my teeth with all this sugary stuff I'm eating & drinking).
It will be a mass start tomorrow - good preparation for the Etape I think.
I'm feeling really positive and really looking forward to the ride tomorrow - can't wait!!

Still recovering

The goal for this week was to recuperate ready for beginning "proper" training again next week. I took Monday and Tuesday off completely. Wednesday was my 20 mile circuit to Lymm, which felt good. On Thursday evening, I had a wonderful fast paced ride in the warmth - a taste of things to come in the summer. Today (Saturday), I had planned a longer ride over to the peaks, as it's going to be hard to fit in much riding next week with the children on holiday from school. As the day wore on, I felt less and less like doing it. The 40 miles into the peaks became 30 miles into the peaks became 40 flat miles to Goostrey, became 30 miles closer to home, finally became the 20 mile Lymm loop. When I finally got out onto the road, I was surprised by the strength of the wind. My speed was ridiculously slow and I felt drained. 25 minutes in the 20 mile Lymm loop was shelved - I turned round and pushed on home. I guess I'm still not quite over the Cat yet.
The kids are like snot factories at the moment and three of us have mouth ulcers. I guess that we're all just a bit run down.
I'm not sure about riding tomorrow - I'll just see how I feel in the morning.