Full write up: -
Only my second 200 of the year, but had plenty of hills in my legs recently so felt comfortable with the challenge ahead. Things didn't start well when my Garmin Edge 705 refused to play ball and switched itself off 6 minutes before lé depart. Had to soft reset and pray it would work (For the first time ever, I forgot to bring a routesheet with me, so things could have got err interesting).
Set off with josh56 OTP of which I ended riding the whole lot with him. Pace was good for the first leg, beautiful lanes towards the Forest of Dean, but a little bit on the chilly side. First climbs up to the Forest including Plump Hill were quite nice and a perfect way to warm the legs up for the rest of the days exertions. The A road slog across the forest of dean was actually really nice and quick and I enjoyed this section. Before I knew it I was flying down an awesome alpine style descent into Monmouth and a quarter of the way through the ride!
Went to Henry's Café in Monmouth about 10am, was a little concerned that they had just opened and could have been slow serving, but beans on toast and coffee arrived fairly promptly. Set off again at about 10:30, I loved the section to Pandy, gradually climbing to some serene views of the black mountains, in fact it followed a similar route as the Gospel Pass 150 which is usually ran in much cooler conditions. At the top of one of the climbs a lady with an England flag clapper was cheering us on which was a pleasant surprise!
Dropped down into Pandy, decided bouncing the first visit would be a good call as I had flapjacks to eat on the go, so continued onto Llanthony and the awesome Gospel Pass. The real climbing seemed to take forever to arrive, but once it did I really enjoyed it, I think it nearly hits 20% at one stage, but the surface is excellent and the cars were considerate, so all was good. Got to the false summit and there were 3 members of the Kenilworth (I think) wheelers I believe cheering us on. Got to the top and took some photos. I don't think you could have asked for a better day to take in the views across Wales. Absolutely sublime.
Descended into Hay which took no time at all! Still a fairly technical descent, but mainly because of the traffic. On entering Hay we realised it was the book festival, which explained why the place was heaving! Stopped for minestrone soup at the Granary Café and set off for the return leg to Pandy.
Now, I was expecting the climb out of Hay to be tough, but I never envisaged it to go on for as long as it did, we climbed to over 1,300ft from 250ft! There were a couple of 25% sections around the hairpins, but I kept a good gear and got up nicely. At the top we were joined by a cycling climb based in Bristol who had set off on their own ride from Aust, over the Gospel Pass!
From this climb, is gradually descended through some lovely lanes, but the surfacing was the worst of the day. I can’t imagine what the patches that had been resurfaced must’ve been like judging by the un-resurfaced sections!
Stopped at Pandy and bought a Mars bar, topped up all my bottles. The climb up from the pub wasn’t that bad, just quite gravelly. There was a BMW following me up that was getting fairly impatient with the fact I wouldn’t (couldn’t!) stop and let him through, which led to lots of engine revving and horn tooting. But oh well, these things happen. Dropped down into Grosmont and set on the penultimate big climb of the day, which just seemed to go on forever, but the views to the left were as excellent as Steve enthusiastically said they would be at the start of the day.
The last major climb was up to Much Marcle, of which I then traced a lot of the route I rode in the opposite direction in the lumpy scrumpy audax 3 weeks earlier. The final control was a nice set up with the campervan. I just topped up my bottle here and took all of my hayfever medication to get me through the early evening pollen uplift. (Just call me Lance Armstrong). It was here I discussed with Mark the difficulty of the Rough Diamond 300km Audax in August as I was conscious that my legs felt excellent at 176km in. Looks like my first 300km event will be this year!
The last section was pretty quick due to the nice tailwind. The last 10km was probably on balance the least exciting part of the lot with a bash along some A/B roads, but the preceding 190km more than made up for it.
The organisation was excellent, the info controls well thought out. I like the fact two of the controls were receipt stops, so you get a choice of café and all cyclists get dispersed. There wasn’t too much gratuitous climbing, with the route actually going somewhere on every leg.
On a personal level, my new Giant has proved to me that it is more than capable on long distance events, it is the first 200 event I have done where I haven’t had awful bum pain. I am most disappointed in my matching Giant branded bottle cages though, I went over a small pothole at about 35mph and the bottle caused the bottom bit to snap into bits! They are only 2 months old!
I also need to get my Garmin sorted, it survived the day, but did turn off once.
Finally thanks to Steve, Josh56 and various others I met throughout the day, which actually wasn’t many people. Though I did keep seeing a guy in an Audax England jersey throughout the day who I think ditched his carradice at one point to collect later as it was rubbing the rear wheel.
Here is the Strava log and some photos: -
http://app.strava.com/activities/56477697Me in a very strange pose:
