Princes Risborough Cycling Sportive

Last weekend I took part in my first cycling sportive of the season. I am planning to do a 100 miler at the end of the season so doing this was a good way to ensure I didn’t leave my training to the last minute.  It was about 58 miles which is not too far but my goodness it was hilly.

The thing is, I actually like hill climbing so was looking forward to the challenge. However, I didn’t get much sleep the night before and woke up pretty dehydrated which didn’t help as it was an early start. I had some problems with my car so then had to rush to the event, find somewhere to park and before I knew it I was off, still feeling a bit thirsty. This turned out to be the theme for the day. I only took one water bottle with me (I know I know), I thought I would get a chance to re-fill but never did. The last ten miles were extremely tough, I had run out of water, my legs were burning from all the hills, my back was aching and my neck was hurting.

Each rider carried a timing chip (attached to the bike). You could achieve gold silver or bronze depending on you average speed. I was aiming for gold (17mph).  I was riding on my own so this time was always going to be tough. However, after about ten miles I managed to team up with some other guy who was also riding on his own and was a similar pace as me. We blazed along, taking it in turns to take the lead. Sharing the work like that really helps keep the pace up. I would’ve really struggled without his help in the later stages.

So overall I cam 9th out of 90 which I was really pleased about, they classed me as a silver despite the fact that my average speed was 17mph. It was a great course though, it took me 3hours and 20mins, the average was just over 4 hours so I’m really pleased.

The event was well run and had a friendly atmosphere. The course had quite a few roads that were in pretty poor condition – there were some pretty scary descents – 45mph down a road littered with pot holes can really test the strength of your stomach. However, the choice of roads was to keep the level of roads with traffic on down to a minimum – it definitely succeeded on this front, although there were the usual angry car drivers driving slowly behind a bunch of cyclists whilst being overtaken by faster cyclists, ahem, chuckle. The weather was glorious too which was a massive bonus.

Above all, well worth a look for next year, its the first in the series run by Southern Sportive. There’s still time to book yourself onto the 100 miler in September – see you there :)