As promised, here are Simon's reports from his on and offroad events from the past couple of weeks. This bank holiday weekend saw Andy and I do the double at Ruthin, completing the first Gore Road Sportive (160km) on Saturday 24th, followed by the Merida Marathon (100km) on Sunday 25th. We'll have a report and pics up this week. - Jenn
Dartmoor Classic 160km Cyclosportif - Sunday 11 May 2008
While the team travelled to Scotland, I’ve been flying the Altura Patterson Training flag in a couple of local events and keeping down my carbon footprint! This is the second year of the Dartmoor Classic, which had a new route to last year of either 100km or 100mile (160km) options and featured a claimed 11,000ft of climbing - it certainly felt like it! About 900 riders lined up for the 160km and 400 for the 100km obviously not put off by last years events when it was swamped with rain! The event was superbly marked and marshalled and was ferociously hot, the fact I took a slight wrong turn after the feed zone was entirely my own fault! The last 30 miles proved the toughest, with plenty of people cramping and pushing up Dartmeet! I was lucky to have plenty of Powergels to keep me going and pleasantly surprised to find I got around in 5hr 37mins and posted the 3rd fastest time just 14 seconds behind Stuart Hall (Alltrax).
This event is a classic worthy of the name and I’ll look forward to doing it again next year. Well done to all those people who posted up times of 10 hours+ for the 160km but who kept going to the finish – heroic!
Newnham 90, Plymouth - Sunday 18 May 2008
After a year off, the Newnham 90 returned with a new route. Sunday dawned bright and sunny, which was a welcome change after 3 days of rain. 400 riders had gathered ready for the off on their choice of either 50km or 90km and it was immediately obvious it was going to be a tough one by the pace set chasing the lead out quad bike. I’d gambled on Panaracer Trailraker mud tyres and this turned out to be a good choice as, despite the heat of the day, the course was often soggy under tread. As suspected elite rider Phil Morris (XC racer/29’ers) moved to the front to control the pace from the outset joined by two handy looking expert riders (1 from Southfork and I didn’t catch the other team sorry Peter). Gary Pike (Alltrax) and I were keeping them in-sight and when joined by Jay Horton (Certini/XC racer), Jay and I jumped across. After some to-ing and fro-ing Jay soon had everyone strung out on the road leading up to the (first) long climb of Lee Moor just as I was trying to eat a Powerbar. Ignoring the feed station to make up some time lost on an unshipped chain, I managed to get past Jay on the fast rocky descent where the Endorfin’s suspension came in really handy. A sustained effort saw me come into the arena as the first 50km rider just ahead of Phil who after grabbing a bottle soon overhauled me before we were both stopped by a marshall who had to move course tape for the second lap! This allowed Jay and Peter 1 to catch us up, but soon it was Jay and myself chasing after a very strong Phil. Some more ambiguous signage that looked like it had been tampered with saw us all together again by a farm and some angry Rottweilers! The second climb up Lee Moor was just as painful as the first although at least this time we did manage to grab some water to help combat the heat at the Certini service zone. Phil surged ahead again and despite some cramp in the last 10km I managed to just get away from Jay. I couldn’t catch a very strong Mr Morris, but I was very pleased to get round in 4hours 6 mins and a creditable second place to some good competition.
Many thanks to Martyn Salt and Inevent for a great route, Certini for the technical back up and well done to all the competitors who made it round!
- Simon
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