A bit of a long day / madonnas breasts

The Dales Grimpeur, 215km

Up to North Yorkshire for what is generally regarded in the cycling calendar as the hardest 200k event of the season. The course can be best described as like Madonnas famous JPG bra - climb up steep Dale for 5k, descend down other side. Cruise along valley for 20k. Climb up steep another Dale for 5k, descend down other side. Stop, turn onto different road, repeat again. and again. and again. and once more. A total of 4,500m (or 3 miles) of vertical climbing in total.

The last 200k I did was on the flat, we flew around in just over 7 hours. I knew this one was going to take somewhat longer and initially guessed at around 10 hours. The first breast, valley, breast loop annoying bought us right back to within 100 metres of the starting point (how depressing is that) and already I knew that 10 hours was a little optimistic and I revised this down to 12 hours. The scenery was really just stunning and for much of the day there was nothing on the road but walkers & bikes, not a car for miles around. A really nice part of the ride was going up past Dent station to Garsdale Head, I went up this climb on my lands end / john o'groats and the weather was foul, thick cloud, heavy rain, rivers running down the road - this time the weather was perfect, it was nice to see the scenery we missed last time around.

After 130k however I was struggling and a big psychological barrier was that once again we were within just a few km of home. I sat down for a rest and very nearly got out the map to see the quickest way home, getting out the map would have been fatal. Instead I popped into a shop and filled one of my water bottles up with a 1 litre bottle of lucozade and got a nice sugar rush for the next 30k or so. After that it was the point of no return, it was shorter to keep going than turn back. Finally arrived back to the finish at 8:20pm, with a total time of 12 hours 20 minutes. Very very tired, by far the longest and hardest day in the saddle I've had but great training for the E'tape which is just 5 weeks away now.

Called my wife to say I'd be home around midnight, don't wait up etc. And then I locked my keys in my car. Worse than that, also in the car were all my worldly possessions - mobile phone, wallet, shoes (so yes, I only had socks on). Thankfully the car was parked at the guest house where I had stayed the night before and he let me use his phone to call the AA. Finally arrived home just shy of 2am, very drained, very fatigued, more than a little tired.

Weighed myself the next day - I started the ride at 77kg. During the ride I had drunk 10 litres of water plus 1 litre of lucozade, so drunk 11 litres (or 11kg) in all, plus breakfast, lunch, dinner, energy bars etc etc. Finished the ride weighting 73kg. Impressive eh!