Jodrell Bank Cyclosportive 80 miles
As part of my training for the end-to-end I’ve entered a couple of cyclosportives as they offer an opportunity to ride some well-thought out routes with organised stops and a bit of challenge. So today was my first attempt at a sportive. Apparently it’s a good one to start with as it’s relatively flat (I’ll come onto that shortly) and only (!) 80 miles. There’s the option to do shorter routes but frankly, I need as much distance as I can get in at the moment.
I’d managed to convince a friend from work, Nigel, to join me on this. We’d ridden the Manchester 100 together last year and he generally rides faster than me so I have to work hard to stay with him. This is great for training because when I’m on my own I find it too easy to drop the speed to take a breather so having someone else there means that rarely happens. So it was with some trepidation that i arrived at Nigel’s house early this morning and we rode the 3.5 miles to the sportive HQ at Woodford community centre. The place was full of cyclists as you can imagine – thankfully all shapes and sizes so I didn’t feel too intimidated. There must easily have been a quarter of a million pounds worth of bikes on display! A short queue saw me registered (rider number 271) and the electronic timing tag fastened to my wrist. We also got a printed map and a goodie bag containing a water bottle and various energy bars/gels and powders.
Anyway, we got the electronic tags blipped at the start and set off. I’d already downloaded the route to the Garmin but it was well marked with arrows at all the major junctions. The route took us out of Woodford and heading initially west in a loop through Mobberley, Ashley, Bucklow Hill, High Legh before turning east at Antrobus. A note here about the wind. The wind was blowing from the west to the east (is that a westerly?) and therefore heading west was a struggle even on the flat. It was hard work to keep 14mph up. Coming back east was the complete opposite – between 20 and 24mph with relative ease. The first timing checkpoint then saw us head southwest through Ollerton and Lower Peover to the next timing point at Goostrey, The course then diverted into a mini-loop around Jodrell Bank. The views of the satellite station were spectacular from all angles as we drew a big arc around it, and the weather was almost spring-like to the point that I put my sunglasses on! We continued on through Siddington and Broken Cross and the few cheeky hills on this course appeared as we rose through Prestbury, Bollington and Pott Shrigley. Once the hills were out of the way the rest was really a cruise back down to Woodford through Poynton and Hazel Grove. All in all a very nice course – apart from the state of the roads. The winter has not been kind to the tarmac – it has been absolutely destroyed in places and it’s pretty depressing when you hack up a hill and then can’t enjoy the descent you’ve earned because the roads make it too dangerous. On that note there was a professional photographer perched on the side of a steep hill so I expect a photo soon of me with an agonised look on my face!
So the 80 miles took 4hrs and 50mins in the saddle (5hrs 20mins including stops) and we recorded an average speed of 16.3mph which I’m pretty pleased with over that distance. Total climbing was only 1973ft and I used 4644kcalories. It seemed that we overtook far more people than overtook us but at the end we were in 153rd place out of 273 entries. I wasn’t last and that was all I was bothered about!
I’d managed to convince a friend from work, Nigel, to join me on this. We’d ridden the Manchester 100 together last year and he generally rides faster than me so I have to work hard to stay with him. This is great for training because when I’m on my own I find it too easy to drop the speed to take a breather so having someone else there means that rarely happens. So it was with some trepidation that i arrived at Nigel’s house early this morning and we rode the 3.5 miles to the sportive HQ at Woodford community centre. The place was full of cyclists as you can imagine – thankfully all shapes and sizes so I didn’t feel too intimidated. There must easily have been a quarter of a million pounds worth of bikes on display! A short queue saw me registered (rider number 271) and the electronic timing tag fastened to my wrist. We also got a printed map and a goodie bag containing a water bottle and various energy bars/gels and powders.
Anyway, we got the electronic tags blipped at the start and set off. I’d already downloaded the route to the Garmin but it was well marked with arrows at all the major junctions. The route took us out of Woodford and heading initially west in a loop through Mobberley, Ashley, Bucklow Hill, High Legh before turning east at Antrobus. A note here about the wind. The wind was blowing from the west to the east (is that a westerly?) and therefore heading west was a struggle even on the flat. It was hard work to keep 14mph up. Coming back east was the complete opposite – between 20 and 24mph with relative ease. The first timing checkpoint then saw us head southwest through Ollerton and Lower Peover to the next timing point at Goostrey, The course then diverted into a mini-loop around Jodrell Bank. The views of the satellite station were spectacular from all angles as we drew a big arc around it, and the weather was almost spring-like to the point that I put my sunglasses on! We continued on through Siddington and Broken Cross and the few cheeky hills on this course appeared as we rose through Prestbury, Bollington and Pott Shrigley. Once the hills were out of the way the rest was really a cruise back down to Woodford through Poynton and Hazel Grove. All in all a very nice course – apart from the state of the roads. The winter has not been kind to the tarmac – it has been absolutely destroyed in places and it’s pretty depressing when you hack up a hill and then can’t enjoy the descent you’ve earned because the roads make it too dangerous. On that note there was a professional photographer perched on the side of a steep hill so I expect a photo soon of me with an agonised look on my face!
