CAS":3mtctqzg said:
Come on then Russell - don't keep us in suspense - how did you do?
Well, I learned a fair few hard lessons about Sportive riding.
1.) Go easy for the first few miles. Being overtaken by all the people you shot past on the first climb is de-moralising.
2.) A 15 yr old bike with a 42/25 lowest gear has no place on a ride that takes you up nearly 8000 vertical feet
3.) You don't need to fill your pockets with food at the start, it will annoy you and you will curse the weight on the hills
4.) Don't leave you wallet on the dashboard of your car when you're going to out riding all day. It will niggle at you and at 60 miles, you will think about using it as an excuse to give up and go home.
However, I did the 85 miles in 6hrs28mins of riding time, a tad shy of 7 hours if you include phonecall/toilet/feed stops. Well inside Bronze time. Made me realise that with just a little bit more training and a more 'climb-friendly' gear, I could probably have scraped a Silver... Hmmmm, next year
I'm now off to research 'modern' road bikes and see that they come with chainrings as low as 34, I expect thats what everyone who overtook me on Symonds Yat was riding