33 percent, that's the gradient of the hill we tried to climb (notice the word tried...)
2, that's the number of times I seriously rued my decision to do this ride.
I'd been looking forward to this ride for a few weeks since booking it, and I was interested to see how Audax rides were organised as this was the first one I'd done - basically a bunch of around 150 guys (and 2 girls, as far as I could see) turn up in a car-park, are given a routesheet and off they go in batches of roughly 25. I could sense that there was somewhat of a competitive spirit in some of the riders when they started jockeying for position to ensure they would be in the first batch of 25...
In hindsight the ride seemed to comprise of around 30 or 40 pretty serious club riders, people who do this type of ride every weekend come rain, sleet or snow and around 100 less serious riders. The club riders just quickly vanished into the distance, the last time I saw them all day was as they left the car park at the start.
So after a 6am start from home I arrived just outside Cheltenham at 8.30, set the bike up and off we go, freezing cold with 4 layers on top (cycling shirt, t-shirt, thermal jumper and cycling jacket), along with thermal hat, gloves and overshoes (they fit over the shoes to protect against cold and wet). I've never cycled in sub zero temperatures before, it was a real struggle - every hill you climb quickly has you baking hot, but then as you go over the crest and speed up down the other side you quickly get very cold. I struggled with this continual hot / cold / hot / cold all day long, found it very energy sapping.
One of the reasons I did this ride was to get back into the practice of climbing hills and OH MY GOD were there some hills. Up and down, up and down all day long. I can't remember more than about 10 miles out of the 70 mile ride that wasn't hilly. The biggest, nastiest hill of them all was just 3 miles into the ride, a one mile long 25% rising to 33% shocker.
I'd like to say that it was because I wasn't warmed up yet (I usually take around 45 minutes or so to properly warm up, this hill was only 5 minutes into the ride).
I'd like to say that it was because it was so cold and the roads were very icy.
I'd like to say that it was because I wasn't really feeling 100%, fighting off a bit of a cold.
All the above are definitely true. But what's also true is that I just wasn't man enough. The hill beat me fair and square. I got half way up but knew I had issues when I found myself cycling slower than the people who had already dismounted and were pushing their bikes up the hills. For the first time in my life I had to get off and walk. It would have been nice to think I got somewhere near the top of the hill before being beat but alas it was half way, max. Mind you, I didn't see a single other person cycle up it, everyone was walking, although I suspect some of the club riders ahead of us made it.
The rest of the ride was scattered with a selection of nasty hills in the region of 15% to 20% and I found just how out of practice I was - I cycled for mile upon mile on gradual inclines, slowly reeling in people ahead of me only to be faced with another steep hill where they left me for dead. I didn't walk up any of the others but came close.
Something else I wanted to do for the first time as well was to see how well I coped with keeping breaks to a minimum i.e. just dashing in to a drink stop, filling up water bottles and then setting off again - previously on my Lands End to John O'Groats trip and my week in the Alps we all had very leisurely breaks both for elevenses and lunch but alas on the Etape that's not possible with the sweeper van chasing you down all the time. I was mainly interested to see whether I would manage to be able to eat and drink enough on the move to keep the body properly fueled and watered and I think I did OK. This was a ride not a race but that aside I think I finished around 30 to 40th out of 150ish, behind all of the club riders but ahead of most of the less serious riders. I finished about 30 minutes behind the club riders I think which isn't too bad over 70 miles, that's just 30 seconds per mile.
So, overall the ride was 68 miles with a cycling time of 5 hrs 25 minutes and a total time (i.e. including breaks) of 6 hours. So an average speed of 12.5 mph, or 11mph factoring in breaks. Looking back at last years E'tape the course was 122 miles with a sweeper van time of 12 hours, so 10 mph. I suspect this years van will be a little faster (as the course is a little shorter) but at least based upon how I did on this ride I feel it will be fine - this ride was also my first decent ride since the Alps last September, it will take a while to build the miles up in my legs again.
The next ride I'm doing is local, so no hills, but longer, 100 miles, that will be an interesting test, I usually only do a 100 mile ride once or twice a year, and towards the end of the year, end even then it's a struggle, so we will see...
