FourShires sportive report.

Yesterday, I did my first Sportive. The Fourshires: 100 miles.

I completed the route of 102 miles in 7 1/2 hours or thereabouts, which I'm quite pleased with.. Anything less than 8 and I was going to be happy.

updated.. Official timing is out. www.stuweb.co.uk/race/oa/65.html I did it in 7:42 which is still within my 8hrs target, placing me 43rd out of 78 finishers. My iPhone battery and auxiliary battery pack died at 7hrs, so I don't have the complete route on Strava (see at the bottom)

The route was good combination of deadly (for a flat-land dweller like me) climbs, fantastic descents and enough flat sections that I could get my head down, onto the drops and just ride like I'm used to. I passed more riders than was passed by, which is a bit of a confidence boost.

I set off about 9am.

The first PROPER climb had a false summit. I'd been pushing on to get to what I thought was the summit, so when the road curved left and I was presented with easily the same again, but steeper I simply said 'Aw yer takin' the wee wee' to which point the chap I was passing almost fell off his bike as he snorted with laughter. (it wasn't that funny I don't think) For the latter part of that second section I did run out of legs and had to push the last bit. To be fair, I think most other riders were doing the same and I saw only a couple who managed to reach the top on their bikes.

There were other climbs which I managed 'ok', grinding away in bottom gear, but the second BIG one (a Cat 3 according to Strava) was also too much for me, and the last section saw me pushing again.

In hindsight, I should have put the other cassette on, which I use for offroading as it's lower geared. Next time.

I skipped the first feed station, stopping only to adjust my brakes which were dragging a little. That would have been about 11am, and true to the weather forecast's prediction, at 11:10 the rain came on.. and it came on!

I arrived at the second feed station at 1:45 and availed myself of a couple of cups of tea to get some heat into me, and a couple of apple pies. One of the chaps I was speaking to there mentioned that his Garmin hadn't seen the air temp rise above 7 degrees. I was there for about 20 minutes.

Rather than hanging about looking woefully at the rain as some seemed to be doing, I set off again before I seized up, and didn't really see anyone else from then on.

I don't think there were any serious climbs after that, but there was a belter of a descent.. long and straight with nothing coming the other way.

The only downside of the descents was that you got chilled from the wind, but grinding away in bottom gear on the ascents didn't get enough heat into me to counter it.

Anyway, I arrived back at Cotswolds cycles, got my medal, a water bottle and free burger (And it was delicious.. but that may just have been the circumstances). Back at the car, I set the thermostat to 28 and put on the heated seats for a bit before I left... I think it was at about Aynho before I finally warmed up properly.

Apart from a slightly tight left hamstring and a bit of stiffness in my lower back, I feel tickety-boo.

app.strava.com/rides/22910354 (Strava is missing the last 6 or 7 miles as the battery in my iPhone, and the aux battery pack had died)

Will do.. It's not immediately obvious where to post to do that tho. Is it an email job?

Well done....i know that part of the cotswolds, lived there for 8 years,it has some dam hard hills.....G