47p2
Senior Retro Guru
...although I'm not sure why they call them sportive :shock: they should call them grumpives or dour face races as almost everyone I met had faces longer than the route.
I can't pretend to know the protocol of such events as I've never participated in one before but if I pass someone or they pass me I always give a friendly hello...only today I was scowled upon for such merriment :cry:
The reason I entered this event was because my daughter had her name down for it, she had been given a new bike from Santa at Christmas and she thought it would be a great incentive to get her out training. We went on holiday in February and hired a couple of road bikes, we had a great time around the Canaries so much so that on my return home I was digging out the Peugeot and back on the road and the rest as they say is history. I'm not a long distance cyclist, it does nothing for me, my idea of a cycle is to go out and hammer a nice route for 25-30 miles and then go home so I held off putting my name forward for this sportive until a few weeks ago, I had noticed my daughter had not done any cycling since about June (house move, granddaughter and hubby working away all blamed) and I was secretly hoping she would drop the idea, but when I spoke to her a few weeks ago she was adamant she was going ahead with it, hence the longer routes I've been riding.
Today's sportive gave a couple of options, the 'standard' route which was 97 miles or the 'elite' route which was 111 miles which included a killer climb at 60 miles in, so with daughter doing the 'standard' route and me doing the 'elite' route we set out this morning. I finished hours ago and am sitting here waiting on my daughter's return, she's now been en-route for over 12 hours and it's dark, her hubby is out giving her some encouragement and she's determined to finish...tomorrow will be a tough day for her.
Once my son-in-law returns I can get my Garmin lead out of his car and will post an image of the route and the climbs.
Will I ever do another sportive, I won't say never but I doubt it very much, I prefer my 25-30 mile routes and have the rest of the day to myself
I can't pretend to know the protocol of such events as I've never participated in one before but if I pass someone or they pass me I always give a friendly hello...only today I was scowled upon for such merriment :cry:
The reason I entered this event was because my daughter had her name down for it, she had been given a new bike from Santa at Christmas and she thought it would be a great incentive to get her out training. We went on holiday in February and hired a couple of road bikes, we had a great time around the Canaries so much so that on my return home I was digging out the Peugeot and back on the road and the rest as they say is history. I'm not a long distance cyclist, it does nothing for me, my idea of a cycle is to go out and hammer a nice route for 25-30 miles and then go home so I held off putting my name forward for this sportive until a few weeks ago, I had noticed my daughter had not done any cycling since about June (house move, granddaughter and hubby working away all blamed) and I was secretly hoping she would drop the idea, but when I spoke to her a few weeks ago she was adamant she was going ahead with it, hence the longer routes I've been riding.
Today's sportive gave a couple of options, the 'standard' route which was 97 miles or the 'elite' route which was 111 miles which included a killer climb at 60 miles in, so with daughter doing the 'standard' route and me doing the 'elite' route we set out this morning. I finished hours ago and am sitting here waiting on my daughter's return, she's now been en-route for over 12 hours and it's dark, her hubby is out giving her some encouragement and she's determined to finish...tomorrow will be a tough day for her.
Once my son-in-law returns I can get my Garmin lead out of his car and will post an image of the route and the climbs.
Will I ever do another sportive, I won't say never but I doubt it very much, I prefer my 25-30 mile routes and have the rest of the day to myself