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damerell at 01:25pm on 04/03/2012
damerell at 01:25pm on 04/03/2012Here is a ride report for the Shaftesbury Spring 200, an audax I rode yesterday.
Ben and I rode the 200 yesterday; this is my first completed 200 for two years. Unfortunately the start time is pessimised for trains from Cambridge; you can get to the HQ either 1h03 before the start or 3 minutes before the start (if the train is on time). I'm not really complaining about this because the start time is good for trains from London, and there's obviously a bigger potential audience that way. As usual, I got the early train (to find the HQ completely deserted until someone turned up to unlock it about 10 past) and Ben the late one; I took the opportunity to shovel in some grub before the start.
We are two of life's lanternes rouge (I even have two tail lights on my bike for use in this noble role) so we let the pack get away before hopping on at the end), but there were three trikes who we passed almost immediately - noticing them riding line astern apparently crazily close to each other, but I realised 1) they are unlikely to touch wheels and 2) they won't fall off if they do touch a front wheel to an axle.
About 10 or 20km in there was a corner where apparently many riders had come off - and I have the greatest respect for the chap who'd calmly got his bloody face patched up and finished just after we did, jacket gory - but we only saw the very end of it, with one woman standing on the inside of the corner. I slowed down to ask if she was all right and got lectured about wearing a bloody helmet - no good deed goes unpunished; so I trogged off again saying "bad luck" and thinking something rather ruder.
We were surprisingly fast for us on the first 50km, with a tailwind and fresh legs, and got to the tearoom some way up the field; particularly we seemed to be quick after the first info, passing a few riders, which we don't often do. To be fair most of the opportunities to go off-route seemed to be in that first 50km, so I guess we passed some riders who were lost. By the time we got out we saw two trikes but not the purple one; I figured she'd packed, but apparently she'd managed to speed up enormously and was just ahead of us. We saw Jackie Popland at this first control, and off and on during the day, when we'd settled into a more natural position for us of being slightly behind her.
The second leg was not so bad in spite of a certain amount of headwind. I don't agree with the people above who've described it as really awful; it was at least intermittent, and on some of these March rides you get a stiff West wind all day and slog into it for entire 50km legs. Three years ago I found myself saying to Ben on the Start of Summertime "We've ridden up this same hill four times this month... into the same sodding wind, too." (We've done few of these over the years; we were joking that we don't really need a routesheet, just a list of the order in which to visit Thaxted, the lubricant factory, Rickling, and the HQ.) Ben got a flat, and unusually I waited with him because we had plenty of time; normally as slowbies we try and avoid the "Alice gets a flat, all wait; Bob gets a flat, all wait; Charlie gets a flat, all wait" thing and whoever's not punctured presses on. However, I was starting to feel it in my legs quite badly as we approached the HQ, and Ben was slackening too.
The leg to 150km was pretty bad, with the wind still in our faces and my old knee problem (which I thought had finally given up) recurring - at one point it seemed bad enough that I might have to pack, but since that meant slugging on to Baldock anyway, it didn't make a lot of difference, and I scrounged some painkillers off Ben at the 135km info and remembered that (curiously) stomping big gears makes it ease up a bit and twiddling little gears makes it worse. This was unfortunate because on this leg any hill-climbing ability deserted me; up until this point I'd stuck with the 52 in front (this is not as heroic as it sounds because I have a 13-34 in the back) but on the third leg I got into the 34 chainring for most of the hills, with Ben shooting up them ahead of me. By Baldock, I'd decided the knee had pretty well recovered; I'd been hungry at 45km, 95km and 145km so I figured I'd shovel in a tenner's worth of food until I couldn't eat another chip. On this stage we were definitely spending some of the time we'd built up - our rolling average was well over 15, but including stops we were losing time.
The final leg back wasn't too bad - unlike the now very rolling first stage, you can practically count the hills on it on one hand, even if one of them is the nasty one; I dropped the chain at the bottom but remounted and winched myself up it in the lowest gear. With the wind at our backs and the end in sight, I wasn't in great shape but we were well aware even if we phoned it in at a steady 15 km/h we'd have half an hour in hand at the arrivee. As it was we got in with just over an hour; having seen the previous Cambridge train leave as we rolled up, we had plenty of time for coffee and an interesting discussion before we trogged back to Elsenham. I was pretty wiped afterwards but hey, first 200 in two years; it's going to take it out of you.
Ben and I rode the 200 yesterday; this is my first completed 200 for two years. Unfortunately the start time is pessimised for trains from Cambridge; you can get to the HQ either 1h03 before the start or 3 minutes before the start (if the train is on time). I'm not really complaining about this because the start time is good for trains from London, and there's obviously a bigger potential audience that way. As usual, I got the early train (to find the HQ completely deserted until someone turned up to unlock it about 10 past) and Ben the late one; I took the opportunity to shovel in some grub before the start.
We are two of life's lanternes rouge (I even have two tail lights on my bike for use in this noble role) so we let the pack get away before hopping on at the end), but there were three trikes who we passed almost immediately - noticing them riding line astern apparently crazily close to each other, but I realised 1) they are unlikely to touch wheels and 2) they won't fall off if they do touch a front wheel to an axle.
About 10 or 20km in there was a corner where apparently many riders had come off - and I have the greatest respect for the chap who'd calmly got his bloody face patched up and finished just after we did, jacket gory - but we only saw the very end of it, with one woman standing on the inside of the corner. I slowed down to ask if she was all right and got lectured about wearing a bloody helmet - no good deed goes unpunished; so I trogged off again saying "bad luck" and thinking something rather ruder.
We were surprisingly fast for us on the first 50km, with a tailwind and fresh legs, and got to the tearoom some way up the field; particularly we seemed to be quick after the first info, passing a few riders, which we don't often do. To be fair most of the opportunities to go off-route seemed to be in that first 50km, so I guess we passed some riders who were lost. By the time we got out we saw two trikes but not the purple one; I figured she'd packed, but apparently she'd managed to speed up enormously and was just ahead of us. We saw Jackie Popland at this first control, and off and on during the day, when we'd settled into a more natural position for us of being slightly behind her.
The second leg was not so bad in spite of a certain amount of headwind. I don't agree with the people above who've described it as really awful; it was at least intermittent, and on some of these March rides you get a stiff West wind all day and slog into it for entire 50km legs. Three years ago I found myself saying to Ben on the Start of Summertime "We've ridden up this same hill four times this month... into the same sodding wind, too." (We've done few of these over the years; we were joking that we don't really need a routesheet, just a list of the order in which to visit Thaxted, the lubricant factory, Rickling, and the HQ.) Ben got a flat, and unusually I waited with him because we had plenty of time; normally as slowbies we try and avoid the "Alice gets a flat, all wait; Bob gets a flat, all wait; Charlie gets a flat, all wait" thing and whoever's not punctured presses on. However, I was starting to feel it in my legs quite badly as we approached the HQ, and Ben was slackening too.
The leg to 150km was pretty bad, with the wind still in our faces and my old knee problem (which I thought had finally given up) recurring - at one point it seemed bad enough that I might have to pack, but since that meant slugging on to Baldock anyway, it didn't make a lot of difference, and I scrounged some painkillers off Ben at the 135km info and remembered that (curiously) stomping big gears makes it ease up a bit and twiddling little gears makes it worse. This was unfortunate because on this leg any hill-climbing ability deserted me; up until this point I'd stuck with the 52 in front (this is not as heroic as it sounds because I have a 13-34 in the back) but on the third leg I got into the 34 chainring for most of the hills, with Ben shooting up them ahead of me. By Baldock, I'd decided the knee had pretty well recovered; I'd been hungry at 45km, 95km and 145km so I figured I'd shovel in a tenner's worth of food until I couldn't eat another chip. On this stage we were definitely spending some of the time we'd built up - our rolling average was well over 15, but including stops we were losing time.
The final leg back wasn't too bad - unlike the now very rolling first stage, you can practically count the hills on it on one hand, even if one of them is the nasty one; I dropped the chain at the bottom but remounted and winched myself up it in the lowest gear. With the wind at our backs and the end in sight, I wasn't in great shape but we were well aware even if we phoned it in at a steady 15 km/h we'd have half an hour in hand at the arrivee. As it was we got in with just over an hour; having seen the previous Cambridge train leave as we rolled up, we had plenty of time for coffee and an interesting discussion before we trogged back to Elsenham. I was pretty wiped afterwards but hey, first 200 in two years; it's going to take it out of you.