The Bike Events Cambridge 100
What a contrast to my Newmarket sportive of two weeks ago.
The weather was much the same, perhaps a little warmer once the sun rose but it was still a chilly 2 degrees when we set off. Bike Events are an event organiser not unlike UK cycling or Wiggle but it’s all a little bit more laid back.
Steve Hughes from Nicetri (soon to be a CC member) and I set off on our TT bikes in the first group at 7am and other than a tandem which took off at a serious pace we led the leading group up to Downham market collecting a group of drafters on our back wheel who were more than happy to let us lead the way.
We were aiming for sub 6 hours and after 33 miles in 1 hour 40 realised that we were well on track and had possibly gone off a little quickly. When we got to the halfway point we stopped at the rest station which turned out to be some bloke who said hello and pointed us towards a pub toilet and a corner shop ("not quite like Wiggle" I said)
We turned around into a 12-15mph headwind which made for a tough second half but we kept up our pace and managed to drop all bar one of our ‘drafters’ and we managed to drag our new friend Mike back to Cambridge. Some of the roads were a bit rough but generally the choice of roads was spot on and we avoided heavy traffic virtually all the way round, with the road markings very good and several marshals at key points. A 3 min traffic light stop in the centre of Ely cost us dear and despite our efforts to get back sub 5.30 we missed it by 2 mins but we weren’t complaining as 5.32 was considerably quicker than planned and other than the flying tandem we were first back.
No punctures and some excellent company all the way around made for a very enjoyable ride and as this was part of our ironman training we packed the bikes in the car and went for a short run around the village playing fields - short being the operative word.