The Cerne Abbas Giant. The significance of this plus why I was pedalling down Piddle as it was pxxxing will become obvious later.
Another day, another ride. Sunday turned out to be the opposite of Saturday in a number of respects:
Saturday: Meticulously planned ride, 30 gears and lots of gizmos, lovely weather, much of time riding in bunch, effort to spare on the hills, never passed, relax and unwind at the finish, comfortable ride back to the hotel.
Sunday: No real plan other than to finish, 1 gear no gizmos (even HRM bust), terrible weather, most of ride solo, max+ effort on hills, often passed, no time at the finish, nightmare ride back to the hotel.
Still in two key ways the days were the same as I achieved the goals that I set my self and they were both rides I won't forget for a long time....
That said much of the detail of what happened Sunday is now lost in a hazy blur of cold, damp and pain. I got up on time but dawdled a bit over my Jordans, partly because I did not feel a rush to start on the dot at 7, given I was not chasing a time. But also because a swift look out of the window showed the threatened rain had already arrived.
Eventually I emerged from the hotel and set about moving various bits and pieces from one bike to another. Once done I pedalled away and uphill. Fortunately I thought to check my bike computer was working as it wasn't. This give me a brief moment of hesitation. I had a spare back at the hotel but that would mean going back downhill then up again. I decided that the trip was worth it as I was pretty sure that at some stage later I would want to know how far I had to go.
This proved to be my second best decision of the day. I headed back, picked up my spare and set of again. Bizarrely during my brief return to the hotel I encountered someone else leaving in bike gear, I presumed to do ride as well. He was not as hard/daft as me as he was driving to the start, but he was a lot more optimistic as he was wearing sunglasses!
So I started again, now well behind schedule and fell further behind as I battled the wind/rain and hills to get to the event. I eventually arrived at the start just in time to hear the starter announce that the group expecting to finish in 7 1/2 hours should commence. I had no clue how long the ride was going to take, but this seemed like a sensible target. Certainly the riders who assembled looked, (how shall I say?) a lot less "athletic" than the bunch I had been with the previous day. So I set off with them. It soon turned out that despite my rudimentary bike I was a lot quicker than them so I soon found myself cycling alone. After a few miles I was overtaken by someone (I guess another late arrivee) on a flat section. This turned to a hill and I found I was catching up with him and we rode together for a while. I was a bit chuffed that he spotted my single gear and offered a few words of congratulations. We came to another flat section and as we sped off I told him to carry on as I did not want to try to keep pace as I knew that might risk overtaxing myself early.
I continued riding. I found that I was overtaking quite a few other cyclists on the hills and myself being overtaken (by those I had passed and other late arrivers) on the flats. This made a sort of sense. On the climbs I was basically using raw power to churn along, I had no real option given I was using a 48x16 gear. (When I looked at the climbs later they were done in pretty much the the same time/VAM as those on the Saturday).
All went well until Cerne. Now this place is famous for a hill carving, more famous for what is carved (see top of blog and attached for more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerne_Abbas_Giant
Pretty much as soon as the climb started it was clear it was going to be a steep one. I kept the pedals turning but every rotation was harder than the one before. After a while I had another problem, I was going so slowly that it was becoming hard to keep upright. Rather than a smooth stroke my pedalling action had become "grunt, push right leg down hard, wobble, teeter, regain balance, grunt push left leg down hard, wobble, think about to fall, regain balance, grunt, push right leg down hard...." repeat.
My "pace" had now gone below walking speed. I had a terrible decision to make, one of the worst any cyclist has. Was I going to get of and push? I decided I had to. I thought I might make it up the hill. But more slowly than if I walked and leaving nothing in the tank for the rest of the day or tomorrow. Pride was one thing but this had now become a question of survival.
Deciding was one thing, doing was another. It actually took some pretty good timing on the greasy surface to unhook myself from the bike and put feet to ground. Even so I managed to tweak a calf muscle in the process. And that was far from the end of the matter. There was still the hill to climb. Doing this in cycle shoes pushing a bike was a nightmare. Fortunately only a brief one as I made the top in 5-10 minutes
Tellingly I cant see from my bike computer when I stopped cycling and started walking. I can see though that the gradient up this hill got into the 20-25% range. Clearly the guy the day before had been lying.
When I got to the top I was still feeling guilty about walking. My guilt was only increased when I looked down the road and saw that lots of others were doing the same. I had a feeling I had started a chain reaction, everyone was desperate not to get off their bikes or at least not be the first to crack. I had cracked and that had pushed others over the edge as well.
Still no time for recriminations. There were still another 100km to go. So I got back on the bike and started pedalling down the Piddle.
Among the many unfortunate things about Sunday was the fact that had the weather been OK it would have been a great route. Following the nightmare out of Cerne it was downhill to the the sea. This took us down the delightfully named Piddle valley, complete with the villages Piddletrenthide and Piddlehinton. Finally, naturally, was the quite appropriately named Puddletown, which is what you get at the bottom of a valley down which Piddle runs.
While pedaling down the Piddle I was building up a bit of speed and overtaking a few bikes again. At one stage I was myself overtaken by a couple of bikes and decided to latch on to see if I could make up some time, reasoning the faster I went the sooner I would be home and (hopefully) dry. This worked very well. By contrast to the previous day they seemed happy to have someone join them to share the load, especially as we were going into a bit of a head wind. We went some 20km at around 30kph, good for the conditions, before they stopped at a feed station.
I pushed on, eventually reaching the far south of the route at Lulworth where we headed off over the army ranges to Corfe Castle. It really was a shame the weather was so bad, the views otherwise would have been spectacular. Traversing the ranges was a bit tough, with some short sharp climbs. However I was not going to stop again. My resolution was bolstered when someone going passed noticed my single gear, said "respect" and offered a high five. This I returned (albeit with a bit of difficulty as we were heading uphill at the time).
Corfe Castle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfe_Castle marked the halfway point of the days ride. On reaching it we turned north for home, helped by a wind on our backs. It was round about at this point that my ride became one of survival. I was hugely relieved that I decided to go back and get a working bike computer because this now became the only thing that kept me going. Once I got past halfway I kept myself going by breaking the ride down into chunks, setting targets, the first of which was 100km then 120km. All I focused on was my LCD display, everything else went by the by.
As a result I can recall nothing about the ride back. This goes to show how hard it must have been, as I am quite good at recalling the details of rides (if hazy as to the actual directions I took).
What I can remember is eventually getting back alone to the finish line. I had no clue or interest in my time or position. The small tented village housing this information, along with food and drink seemed a long way away over a very muddy field. As I debated whether it was worth the slog over a very worrying thought started to loom in my mind. I knew how tired I was. I knew I was riding a fixed gear bike. And I knew how steep the hill going back to the hotel was. I became afraid, very afraid that I was not going to be able to get up that hill. I supposed there may be other routes back but I did not know them and if attempted they were likely to get me very seriously lost.
Then it occurred to me. Before the climb was the small village of Marston and in this village I had passed a pub. A pub meant the chance of some food but even more important some beer. I knew I would need both to get me home. So I turned my back on the tents and started the journey back, arriving at the pub a few miles later.
I parked up my bike. Just before I went in I hesitated. I could imagine how I looked and was worried that the landlord may not appreciate a soaking wet and filthy lycra clad cyclist dripping all over his floor. I decided I did not care, my need was urgent.
I needn't have worried. The welcome I got at the pub was fantastic. The locals wanted to know how I had arrived at their door and were suitably impressed by how far I had ridden (even more so when they found out that this was just one of three days). They suggested I try some Cornish beer, Tribute. The name seemed appropriate so I order a pint and some peanuts. When the glass came I realised just how cold I was. My fingers had lost all sense of feeling. I could see they were still attached to my hand but they had lost all sensation. They looked and felt like rolls of putty. Embarrassingly this meant I could not lift the glass, save by putting both palms against it and lifting it to my lips like a baby. But the beer tasted good. So I ordered another and waited for my limbs to warm up, while watching the finish of the Monaco GP and chatting to the people there. One was a postman, who told me he was used to riding his bike up the hills around and about and agreed the one to Sherborne was a bugger. With some drink inside me I started to think about food. Unfortunately I was too late for lunch, but luckily some roast potatoes appeared covered in gravy appeared on the bar. I helped myself and they had an immediate effect warming my insides.
I must have spent an hour or so there. Then I decided I had better move on, otherwise I would never get back to the hotel. When I went out I found the rain had pretty much stopped and the sky, if not exactly blue, was certainly a lighter shade of grey. I had a strange sense of deja vu to my terrible day in Belgium on my TDF. Similarly then I had been soaked, knackered and at the end of my tether. http://mr-miff-on-tour.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html
Similarly then a warm pub, beer and food had done the trick and got me started again.
Even so I don't recall how I got back to the hotel. But I did and sank gratefully into a big hot bath along with tea and the Sunday Telegraph. I phoned Mrs M from this haven of warmth and told her of my days various episodes, good and bad.
Followed this with another great meal. Beforehand in the bar I overheard some others who had gone through the same experience as me. They were debating whether to give the next day a miss and go home early and ended up deciding to do just that. I entertained no such thoughts. Even though opinions were divided about what the weather was going to bring I was sure I would do the next days ride. However I was in a bit of a quandary. I had trained for the weekend with the intention of reaching gold standard. However this required averaging 6 hours for the rides and I had pretty much given up hope of doing that after the events of the day. So I went to bed with no plan, other than getting up and seeing what the Monday would bring.
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