Anyone here ride sportives?

You could try reliability trials.
I myself can't stand the mediocre UK sportives. As someone from here said'ish ' sportives are treated like races by people that can't race, and reliability trials are riden by those that can, but aren't'
There are classic sportives and a few of them are here in the UK. But beware of paying £20 plus for a club ride with bananas thrown in.
 
Nice one for the heads up for reliability trials. Turns out there are some early next year which look good. I've emailed the guys organising to ask if they mind me riding an mtb with slicks...
http://www.seacroftwheelers.co.uk/reltrial.htm

Looking forward to it if it's a goer...£1.50 entry fee too! Anyone else fancy it?...
edit...Just reread the webpage and it was for the beginning of 2009!!!!!
 
I've done a few and I certainly wouldn't want to do one on an MTB with slicks if I wanted to finish on the same day as everyone else.

A full carbon road bike, deep section rims, replica team kit and carbon disco slippers is the only way to go and don't expect anyone to talk to you if your groupset is any lower than Chorus or Ultegra! :LOL:

But seriously though, if you fancy giving it a go then go for it. Yes they can be a few quid but the ones I've done have been well organised with feed stations and a well marked route of over 100 miles on mainly quiet roads that loop back to where you started. Don't listen to the guys who said you're paying £20 for a couple of bananas as they were clearly exaggerating, they have flapjacks & Lucozade Sport as well!

If you want to really test yourself though, hop across the channel and do La Marmotte. ;)
 
Reliabilty trials are early season only. I had my smug grin wiped clean of my face back in 1990 by some of the roadies on slicked up MTBs.
The key with trial is to set of in the right 'time alloted' group. That said if you accidently get in too fast a group, the next time slot group should arrive a bit later.
 
i emailed the guy about the seacroft wheelers reliability rides aand mtb with slicks is fine. I'm eyeing up the shorter of the two distances...Something to keep motivated for over the cack weather days
 
Sportives - especially the Euro variety - are great.

Rode the Etape, Marmotte, etc last year and they were awesome. Can't beat riding the course and then watching Wiggo et al blasting round the same course at about ten times your speed a few days later.

Also seen nothing more insane than an Italian guy I was riding with in an Italian sportive dropping into a hairpin right hander coming off the top of a climb still sitting back in his saddle doing up his windtop - needless to say he smoked me on the descent.
 
Pace":19eqo9w2 said:
Also seen nothing more insane than an Italian guy I was riding with in an Italian sportive dropping into a hairpin right hander coming off the top of a climb still sitting back in his saddle doing up his windtop - needless to say he smoked me on the descent.

I've had similar experiences on the UK ones, descending on the Fred Whitton around 50+ two guys passed me as if I was standing still. On the etape du dales a UK team* was riding it and to watch them pass me on the climb was both amazing and demoralising at the same time :LOL:



* for the life of me I can't remember who they were :? sponsored by Sunday bicycles as they were at the time
 
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