BRITISH CYCLOCPORTIVE EVENT – July 1^st 2007

Greenwich to Canterbury 117 miles

By Tony May. 

My alarm sounded on Sunday at 3.30 am to the sound of rain beating on the windows – great! After Saturdays soaking at the event registration the rain continued on the drive down but on arrival at Blackheath the skies brightened somewhat and apart from a couple of small showers the rain held off for the rest of the day.

A large group of North Roaders formed up and we all moved up to the start line, only to be split into two groups by the officials on the start line; so much for staying together! On starting I was amazed to see people had punctured even before leaving Greenwich Park and the Lower Charlton road seemed to be full of more people franticly trying to mend punctures. Once things got moving properly I started to cycle at my own pace and was riding with Ian Turner, his friend Steve, Simon Checkley and Marcus Machell.

Ian, Steve and I slowly started to pull away from the others, and then around Erith Ian started to pull away leaving Steve and I working together to the outskirts of Rochester, where Steve decided to ‘water the flowers’. I then cycled with a bunch that formed the basis of a hardworking group that stayed together for the rest of the ride.

No one appeared to want to stop at a feed station, so we rattled through three stations taking turns at pulling on the front and maintaining a high pace. At some stage a patron of the peloton appeared within the group, a very strong guy who did big pulls on the flat. He had worked out that at this pace we would reach Canterbury in less than six hours; this appeared to spur the rest of us on to keep the speed up. A group decision was made to make one stop at the penultimate feed station (80 miles) before the final leg of the ride As we pulled in we were welcomed with empty tables, apparently the supply lorry had been involved in a accident and not arrived. All that was on offer was water; this was accepted. I had no food but a couple of gels that I now used. We set off now in ‘chain gang’ mode reaching speeds of 30 mph for the next 15 miles before things eased down a bit – this was the hardest section of the ride for me, at times I was hanging on for grim death. We passed the final feed station again without stopping and were soon on the last climb of the day – Farthing Common. Here I and three others managed to drop the rest of the group and on reaching the summit with the wind now fully on our backs, ears were pinned back and a serious bout of through and off for the last 10 miles to the finish followed.

It was a great ride, well organised and sign posted and I was really pleased with my time and to finish within the top 100 riders of such an event. The only downside for me was the registration the previous day and lack of food at our chosen stop. I heard afterwards the other feed stations were very good, so much so that apparently Mark Lawrence managed to actually gain weight during the event due to the amount of hot dogs and Soreen bars he put away!

Does anyone care to join me in the Archer sportive next month (August 5^th)?