Taming the Dragon: Two 200k monsters in Wales

August 13th: Elan 200km, 3,800m of climb

A weekend in Wales, based out of Gladestry which, so I was told, is the home of Hergest Ridge which, so I was told, was made famous by Paul Young who, so I was told, was some sort of singer / songwriter.

Anyway, onto the cycling, this was the final "proper" ride before the Cent Col Challenge, a final reminder to the legs and mind of the challenge ahead. I came over to do this weekend last year as well, the Saturday was so cold wet and miserable and tough that I bailed out of the long Sunday ride and did a shorter one instead - so it was also a bit of unfinished business.

Saturdays ride was 200km from the English / Welsh border all the way to the seaside at Aberystwyth and back again across simply stunning scenery with the only cars (or people) to be seen all day at Aberystwyth. 3,800m is "quite a bit" of climbing, but it was the sort of climbing I love - nice steady gradient, plugging away for an hour or so to get to the top or each climb - and once at the top a fabulous blat down the other side - this was true cycling heaven:
















I have to confess to getting a bit carried away with all the lovely scenery and "cracking on" a bit too much, I was first home my several country miles and the legs paid the price the next day.


Stats: Distance 208km; Climb 3,800m; Time on bike: 9hrs; Average: 22km / hr; Max: 74km / hr (whee...)

Here's my Garmin track (I accidentally had it turned off for a bit, hence why it only says 196km).

http://

August 14th, Tregaron Dragon 200km, 4,900m of climb

And so onto Sunday...

I can honestly say this was by far the hardest ride I have ever done, it was a real sod. I went into it thinking - just like the day before but each hill will be a bit longer, higher etc. Nope, wrong. Each hill was actually much shorter - just instead of there being 10 there were 50. Up and down, up and down all day long. Every hill was also not a steady gradient, varying from 5% to 25% and back again continually all the way up - real energy sapping stuff never being able to settle into a gear or a pace. I knew I was going at a reasonable "steady" pace when the guy who was cycling with a bust ankle (don't ask...) caught me up at the first rest stop.... It was also the first ride I've ever done when we were looking up at the clock checking "are we close to being out of time".

But anyway, on we plodded, some of it was not pretty (and yes, I was in a low gear...)


















But all of it was truly spectacular:


















Stats: Distance 210km; Climb 4,900m; Time on bike: 11hrs; Average: 19km / hr (plod plod plod...); Max: 74km / hr (whee...)

Garmin:

http://































http://connect.garmin.com/page/activity/activity.faces?activityId=106672101&actionMethod=page%2Factivity%2Factivity.xhtml%3AuserSwitcher.switchSystem&cid=3115229#.Tkos3OvNHh0.email

Another really daft thing on a bike: Please sponsor me

All,

As most of you know I am prone to doing daft things on bikes and after a rest last year I am back again this year dafter than ever – the Cent Col Challenge, starting on September 12^th.

If you want to skip the boring stuff then in summary:

a) It’s stupidly hard

b) I will cry, probably several times and

c) This year I am raising money for Help for Heroes. http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/

Please dig deep – the deeper you dig the harder I will climb...

Sponsor me here: http://www.justgiving.com/centcol

I will try my best to find a little time each day to update my blog http://centcol2011.blogspot.com/ (else I will do it once I am back home). On there already are a couple of write-ups from a couple of the harder training rides during the year.

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And now the boring stuff:

The challenge, to put it simply, is to climb 100 mountain passes (cols) in 10 days. In those 10 days we cover 2,000km in distance and 43,000 metres of ascent.

Putting the challenge into non-cycling terms, in 10 days you cycle from London to any of Macadonia, Iceland, Morocco or Russia whilst at the same time going from sea level to the tip of everest and back down again. And up and down. And again. And again. And one more for luck, a total climb of 43,000 meters or 26.7 miles – a vertical marathon. That will be “interesting”.

As a comparison to what I have done in the past:

In 2008 I did the “Etape”, the amateur stage of the tour de france. It was 170km long, went up 4 cols and climbed vertically in the region of 2,500m. I cried twice and couldn’t walk for 2 days afterwards. My bike stayed resolutely in it’s box unpacked for 2 weeks afterwards. My cycling shoes went in the bin. The Cent Col Challenge does an Etape a day (plus a bit more) every day for 10 days back to back.

In 2009 I did the “Raid Pyrenean”, a traverse of the Pyrenean mountain range – 740km ride with 11,000m of climb in 5 days. This was *hard*, both mentally and physically, my body was literally eating itself at the end as it’s impossible to replace the calories consumed. The Cent Col Challange by contrast is 10 days not 5 but in those 10 days you do triple the distance and 4 times the climb of the Raid Pyrenean.

The event is described in more detail here http://centcolschallenge.com/challenge/

As always this is not a “charity holiday” event – every pound I raise goes to charity not on the cost of the trip. And as always for every pound I raise I will match it with a pound of my own.

In the wilderness - the return of the training diary.

By unpopular demand, a very brief return of my training diary ahead of my challenge later this year. Firstly the challenge itself – I was hoping this year to do my first mountain bike challenge – biking to Everest base camp - but alas there was only one person out of the 6.9 billion on this planet who thought it was a good idea and the trip was cancelled due to lack of interest. Oh well, next year maybe.

So instead I stumbled by accident on the “Cent Col Challenge” – a challenge to ride 100 cols (mountain passes) in 10 days. Known as I am for doing stupid things on a bike, this is quite easily by far the most stupid yet. By way of comparison in 2008 I did the “Etape”, an amateur leg of the tour de france route – it was in the Pyrenees and climbed about 4,000m vertically over a ride of 170km. It was physically and mentally “quite tiring”, I cried twice and couldn’t walk for 3 days afterwards. This challenge is to do 10 Etapes (+ a bit) back to back, all in the Pyrenees – 10 days of 200km a day, averaging 4,300m climb a day, a total climb of 43,000m (26.7 miles) over 10 days – so a vertical marathon… It is in all senses of the word Stratospheric (actually, almost Mesospheric…). I will of course be tapping your pockets for a good cause in the weeks ahead.

http://centcolschallenge.com/challenge/

But anyway, back down to earth, or at least the Yorkshire Dales.

Training this year seems to have gone reasonably well, I’ve been in the UK a lot more which is nice and the weather has been fab, I’ve clocked up around 4,500km so far this year though all on the flat. Like anything in sport zipping around in the east anglian flatlands is one thing, climbing the Tourmalet or one of the other Tour classics is somewhat different – this weekend in Yorkshire was intended to remind the body and mind of the challenge ahead.

Saturday June 4th – The Dales Grimpeur – 210km, 4,800m of climb.

I last did this ride in 2008 as training for the Etape, it was a “bit of a struggle”, finally getting around in 12.5 hours:

http://etape-2008.blogspot.com/2008/06/bit-of-long-day-madonnas-breasts.html

This year, 3 years on, 3 years fitter, 3 years of experience climbing mountains later and I did it in… 14 hours…

The day had started off perfectly, setting off at 6.30am, sun was out, lovely and warm, blue sky and straight out into the wilderness – perfect cycling weather in perfect cycling country. Alas all that was about to change… within a couple of hours the wind picked up and the weather closed in, on the tops of the moors it was proper nasty – One motorcyclist stopped on his way down and told me in his best Yorkshire accent “take care son, it’s pretty bleak on top” and it was - circa 40 to 50 mph headwinds and thick mist (apparently it was a scorching day back home down south) and one on descent in particular I was bought to a dead standstill by one blast, unable to make any progress in my lowest gear even on a reasonably steep down slope.

The only other people out and about were people doing the Oxfam Pennine way challenge – a 100km walk over 30 hours- they were looking pretty bedraggled… (though the picture here of the Ribble Viaduct not quite doing justice to the conditions).

So it was a pretty long and “interesting” day weatherwise. The views from the tops of the moors would have been stunning had you been able to see more than 2 metres or had you been able to look around without getting blown off your bike and I would certainly have been quicker than 12.5 hours had I not spend about 4 hours basically going, well, nowhere, each pedal forward being met by a blast of headwind, I was doing about 8km / hr on the flat, around ¼ of my normal cruising speed.

But, that bruising encounter with the weather aside it was gods own country for cycling, barely a car all day. You know you are in proper wilderness when you find the following on your route:

Sunday June 5th – Etape Du Dale, 170km, 3,700m of climb.

When in Rome, etc...

I stumbled by chance on the Etape Du Dale route on one of the cycling forums, it started just down the road from my Saturday ride and went an almost entirely different route, so it seemed rude not to give it a go. Had I been doing the ride on the official race day I would have been “DFL” by a long long way, my poor body and mind somewhat reluctant to co-operate for the first couple of hours with every brief stop being met by five minutes of uncontrolled shivers as the body said “stop being nasty to me”. The weather wasn’t helping once again, thankfully less windy but now being replaced by torrential rain. It had been forecast to be 18 degrees, it was actually 8 degrees – or, as one local put it in their best Yorkshire accent in a pub “it’s brassic out there…”

The ride went up to the Tan Hill Inn, the highest pub in Britain, the one that was famously cut off last winter for a week. When you climb up there it’s easy to see why, there is literally nothing around for a 10km radius – pretty daunting even on a wet and windy June day, downright scary in the middle of winter. They served me the cheapest drink I’ve had in decades – a pint of lime and soda I wanted – 25 pence the price!.

Interesting I just checked the results page from the 2011 Etape du Dale, I took a rather leisurely 12 hours to get round though this did include a full breakfast, elevenses and lunch stop in cafes / pubs. My on bike time was 9.5 hours – the winner did it in 6 hours 19, that’s really truly astonishing, an average of 27km / hr is what many people are happy with on the flat, let alone over some pretty tough hills.

That’s all from me for now, more follows in August following a weekend in the Welsh mountains.