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Saturday 17 May 2014

Phase Two






Phase 2 of the training weekend is today’s Thoresby Cycle Fest Sportive, which I’m doing on deliberately tired legs. I’m on the 50 mile route, L’s on the 34 mile.

We drive up to Thoresby Hall for the start, leaving the boys at home due to the expected hot weather.

I start off and quickly get my head down, using my aerobars (I need the practice). I whizz past several folk although the downside is the aerobars make pothole dodging difficult and there are a lot to dodge. Then 20 miles in, I find one particularly large one unmissable. I disappear down it. At first I think I’ve punctured both tyres but it just turns out to be the rear one. Good job, as I only have one spare tube. I’ve also knocked both my rear brake and my bike computer out of alignment and it takes another 10 miles to get both functioning correctly again.

That takes me to the feed station at Halam, just outside Southwell. It is a well stocked feed station, loads of cakes and a cup of tea, much better than the Kilo To Go ones. Although they don’t have any bike spares. So I can’t get another tube and therefore have to make sure I don’t fall down any more holes on the rest of the route. It is a route that seems to cover the northern most sections of the Great Nottingham Bike Ride, so I’ll be back on these roads next month.

Overall it’s all very well organised and there are other races on during the weekend as well. These include the Unicycle & British Open Penny farthing Championships and also some Paper boy racing. I really wished I’d entered the latter. They’ve even erected dummy doors to post newspapers through.

L does her 34 Miles in 03:12, I do my 50 in 03:42 but if you take off my puncture stop and the fact I had a leisurely cup of tea, perhaps I could have caught her.

We get home to the news that all the remaining 17,000 Play Off tickets, that went on general sale this morning, sold in 54 minutes. Wow. Sadly my brother didn’t get the four he was looking for.

Later we take the dogs down the local pubs for a beer, as we need to rehydrate for tomorrow. Sadly the Wheelhouse has taken the Abbot off, so we move across to the Wollaton Pub which has equally dull beer but better food. I drink the Black Sheep.

(Saturday 17th May)

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