https://www.strava.com/activities/636534730
Back to my Sportive on Sunday - Kington Lions (local fundraising charity)
'Classic' route. I had originally put my name down for the shorter route (40 miles) with a friend who had to drop out due to work. I jumped into the 70 miler with a couple of guys from the club who were riding. Knew I was out of my depth a little after my
last outing with them!
As I'm staying near to the start
I rode there in the morning (leaving 'home' at 8), although the guys were running a little late so I had some time to chat to a few others and partake in some of the refreshments supplied (couple of cups of coffee & bacon sandwich, didn't fancy a burger that early!). Weather was clear and the clouds looked to be lifting. The ride started from the car park of a fostering home that the ride was partly in aid of. Organisation was great and staff were very helpful, setting riders off (after the 8.30 start) in groups, the majority of which were under 10. It helped that riders arrived in dribs and drabs rather than the massed starts I've seen before!
Once ready to leave time was nearing 10am so we were probably some of the last to set off on the long route. Weather was clear but overcast, the others had no guards/overshoes fitted I removed mine and left them (big mistake)!
Fairly speedy ride out along ok roads to the first stop in Painscastle, there were a couple of brief rainshowers so we did stop at the top of 1 climb to don rain jackets. I was taking things fairly easily on the climbs as I had an idea of what was to come so it was a welcome respite... The descent into Erwood (3 switchbacks) was good fun but with wet roads and some bits of gravel was taken carefully.
We crossed the river Wye (and a main road) before beginning the first big climb of the day '
Pendre' (a CAT3 - 3.5 miles @ 5% avg, first 0.5 @ 10% avg). One of our guys struggled on the first section, after it had leveled off slightly I pulled over to wait for him and munched my first Cliff bar (needed to text the other half to confirm I was doing the 70 miler). A couple of other riders passed and said he didn't look great so I started to turn around to head back for him, as I did so he appeared. He'd gone hard into the red and hit the wall - he'd done it a few weekends earlier for the first time and you could tell it'd scared him. Stopped with him for 5 minutes and then we headed off easily, I held back so there was no pressure on him - we could see there was lots of the climb left! We caught up with the others waiting a little higher up and
finished the top of the climb together, along with the descent to a road junction. According to Strava we'd climbed 1000ft in 3.5 miles!
(I'm looking in pain on the left!)
Turning left onto a road we joined the middle of another long climb, I recognised it and knew we were on the Builth to Brecon road. Preedy again hit the wall and had to stop, Kevin stopped with him and I paced myself up it. There were a couple of fun descents and an open section over some cattle grids and past the first of the military firing ranges before we descended towards Upper Chapel. Some idiot in a people carrier overtook me (towards a blind bend) on the first descent so I had fun sitting in his wingmirror shaking my head on the second one (
@40+mph!)
After we turned back north on the B4519 from the main-ish road the climbs came thick and fast, so did the rain! The light bits of drizzle we had seen for the previous 2 hours settled into a steady light rain. With the open stretches (
past more military ranges, think these are the 'Mynydd Epynt' on the north edge of
SENTA) on these exposed sections the sidewinds were crazy, every one of us having scetchy moments and wheel slips/slides. We were utterly soaked at this point, the mistly light rain and strong winds doing their worst even though the roads were clear and not much standing water around. We stopped at the top, although unable to enjoy the views due to the mist and rain, we really enjoyed the descent, at one part there was a brief break in the clouds, a dip in the winds and a dry stretch of road! At the bottom of the descent we stopped in Garth for the 2nd food stop. A warm drink was welcome but while we were there some heavy rain descended on the area.
We waited for the worst of the rain to pass before setting off,
my feet hadn't really got wet until then as the standing water did it's thing. The next 45 minutes were pretty grim for me as in the back of my mind I semi-knew where I was at the food stop. I had contemplated just taking the main road back to Builth to miss out the loop around Llamgammarch which I thought was pretty pointless (apart from increasing the mileage!).
Once we hit Builth I knew the route back to Aberedw so pushed the guys on, once through Aberedw we were again onto back roads barely traveled and began climbing...
As the road surfaces got worse, so did the rain! Thankfully as we were climbing alongside a stream up a secluded valley the winds had died down. After a junction (I got wrong!) there was a brutal climb & after struggling to get any rythm
I had to walk the worst of it. After a brief walk I was aware that it was taxing my quads more than riding would, I attempted twice to get going and failed miserably to clip in. As the gradient eased off I remounted over a cattle grid, the gradient was steady and higher up as we passed through some trees Kevin had to stop due to mud/rubbish in his Propel's rear caliper & Preedy held back with him. They were both starting to cramp up, Dean merrily climbed away from us as I took it easy spinning away. I realised the others had stopped so I did too munching my second Cliff bar under the shelter of a tree,
I could see Dean climbing past the treeline across the side of the hill infront of me (see where the van is going) while rainwater ran down the roads towards me. The climb here was steady across some exposed moorland,
I continued on and after reaching the summit came across Dean coming back to find us. At that point the wind/rain was rapidly cooling me down so I headed back with him for a short stretch before we regrouped for the descent. The descent into Paincastle was fun but the roads were quite narrow and I descended carefully on the front. At Painscastle we stopped at the food stop (hot drinks!) but the guys there had packed away the kettle, we pushed on rather than waiting for them to unpack it, thinking we were 'only' 10 miles from the finish.
These last few miles were pretty grim, the route took us along some pretty poor back roads with lots of loose gravel, potholes, broken road surfaces and standing water. There was around half a mile section surrounded by trees I wouldn't have even taken my car down! We had no option but to proceed carefully, there were a couple of climbs and one short/sharp/steep one had 3 of us stopping/walking/cramping up. The last stretch of better road (from Michaelchurch) had some slight descents and much better surfaces,
felt really good to get some speed up and to roll back into Kington together!
#sockdoping
My food strategy worked well - tried to eat something every 20 mins. Usually between a third or half of a 'breakfast'/museli type bar.
In the morning (pre-ride) I ate 2 pieces of toast with peanut butter, a bowl of museli and had an americano (w 1 sugar). 30 min low intensity ride to the start. While waiting for the others I had another (milky) coffee (w 1 sugar) and a bacon roll, in around an hour. The next ~5 hours riding I ate: 3 museli/granola/flapjack (kellogs/hobnob) kinda bars, 2 bananas, 2 Cliff museli bars, 1 kipling apple pie, 2 milky coffees (w 1 sugar) and 2 High5 gels (in the last 30 miles). I drank a cup of squash (at 1 stop) and had 3 tabbed drinks while riding throughout the day.
