Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Back to OPINION
OPINION

Not A Sportive #1

Avatar
Avatar
by VecchioJo
Wed, Apr 08, 2009 14:47
1
Not A Sportive #1NAS#1JPG.jpg

Number 1 in series of 100 mile road rides organised by a far-flung group of riding buddies and around where their disparate homes lie in Sussex, the Cotswolds, Chilterns and various spots in The North.

Each designed to be lumpy. With Cake.

The first round is a big clockwise loop taking in the South Downs and The Weald to celebrate the changing of the clocks and all the promise of the extended daylight hours to come that brings.

A handful of friends (me, the still ill one, in the following car playing D.S. with bananas and biscuits), 100 miles marked out on a map (that's 160 kms in sportive speak, it makes it sound so much longer and more heroic in the office on Monday), caff stop at the halfway point, no time for the planned pub stop 25 miles later, a few big hills, one century cherry popped, good miles, good riding, good friends chasing the twilight home for tea and buns and cake with a lap around the park to bring it up to an exact 100.

No 'free' commemorative t-shirt, just memories - they tend to last longer before getting relegated to oily-rag status.

All in all pretty much what groups of cyclists have been doing for years and years and years without having to pay through the nose for.

And not once did anyone have to take avoiding action round a chubby bloke perched atop a meandering Trek.

Sportive
cake
proper century
VecchioJo

Jo Burt has spent the majority of his life riding bikes, drawing bikes and writing about bikes. When he's not scribbling pictures for the whole gamut of cycling media he writes words about them for road.cc and when he's not doing either of those he's pedaling. Then in whatever spare minutes there are in between he's agonizing over getting his socks, cycling cap and bar-tape to coordinate just so. And is quietly disappointed that yours don't He rides and races road bikes a bit, cyclo-cross bikes a lot and mountainbikes a fair bit too. Would rather be up a mountain.

Add new comment

1 comments

Avatar
DaSy | 15 years ago
0 likes

My feelings exactly Jo...

My most spoken about ride was a one to my mates holiday home in Eype, Bridport. I had to create the route, country roads all the way for 140 miles. The route was new to us all (6 riders) and so my plan unravelled a bit when we got to the 120 mile mark only to hit a pretty tough Abbotsbury hill. That saw one of our number ride to the point where he ran out of gears and kept pushing until he actually fell off in the road...I have never respected a rider so much as to see him genuinely go to the point of complete exhaustion.

We rode as the most unruly group, jumping off for sprints all the time, holding insane pace for little impromptu time trials etc, getting run off the road in the New Forest by a pig that loomed out of the fog, and all crawled into Bridport pretending to be as fresh as when we started.

We got no T-shirt either, carried our food with us, plus one stop for lunch and a puzzled cafe owner trying to work out why he had 12 main courses on his order form and only 6 people, and off course toast on top.

I liked the idea of Gentlemans races that Rapha put forward a while back. We go out as a group of friends, then try and destroy each other along the way with a mix of piss taking, unlikely sprints and of course KOM races on anything that looks vaugely uphill. None of the pacing to complete the event efficiently of a Sportive, you only manage to get to the end because not to would be more p!ss taking than I could sustain.

Latest Comments