Tour of the Black Mountains 2007

Map here: http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Tour-of-the-Black-Mountains-2007

The course:

Had a thoroughly hard but also enjoyable weekend. Did what I expect to be my final sportive of the year and it turned out to be the best.

The event was the "Tour of the Black Mountains", starting from Abergevenny and heading north then east of Brecon, then south and a series of climbs past a number of reservoirs to return to base.

The course (set by the same guys that do the Wessex) looked a bit of a challenge. 115 miles, a big old hill just after the start, then a long stretch on rolling A road, then lots of hills. Then right at the end another long climb.

In the couple of weeks beforehand I was dreading the weekend. The weather was truly awful and the prospect of riding all day in the wet welsh mountains held little appeal. However the closer the day came the better the forecast. In the end it turned out perfect. Dead lucky, second long ride in Wales of the year and both blessed with great weather.

I stayed overnight at the Angel Hotel in Abergavenny:

http://www.angelhotelabergavenny.com/

Once again I struck lucky, another great independent hotel with superb food. Learning from the Wessex I kept things simple, just ordering some penne. But even this simple dish was great.

Due to it being so popular I had to eat in the lounge and as a result had an interesting encounter with a local chap, with who I spent a happy half hour hearing a bit about the local history and looking at some really very good photos of steam trains taken in the area.

Prior to checking in I had checked out the ride doing a 70k circle round the start/end. Glad I did because the last 1km of the first climb was very steep which was good to know. Also the run into the finish included a couple of nasty little steep bits.

Only problem with this reco ride was that it did mean going to bed a wee bit more tired than I had hoped.

Woke on time, ate some Frosties (fortunately breakfast was not served until 8 so I did not have the tricky decision of whether to miss what I am sure would be a great "full" in search of cycling prowess). I donned my "Swiss" top for its first real outing, reasoning that having to ride for my country may spur me on to greater heights...

Very short drive to the event so I arrived, unaturally for me, early with plenty of time for last minute fettling. My cunning plan was to go off right on the dot at 8.00. This was the time set for those expecting to go under 6 hours. Not that I expected for a minute to do this time. But if I set off with this group and stayed with them up the long first climb, this would be the perfect group to stick with along the A road. Worst case and I fell behind I could join the next group along, who would probably be riding around my normal pace in any case.

Best laid plans...when I rolled up to the start at 7.55 a lot of riders had already set off. And I could tell from a short look round those with me that they were not the stuff sub 6 hour times are made of. I cursed a bit and assumed I had missed the first quick group. So I hurtled off, plan now being to catch them. Or if not to find riders going at similar pace during the climb and stick with them. This meant first 15km or so were a bit frenetic. I was catching and overtaking groups all over the place. Finally just before the end of the climb I settled into a group that seemed to be moving quite quickly. The presence of a motorbike just ahead seemed to indicate this was the lead group. Happily I had no problem sticking with them on the steep section but then just as I was relaxing a bit my pedals stopped turning. I looked down and realised my chain had come off....so I stopped, fixed it and restarted ASAP then hurtled at breakneck speed down the hill to rejoin the group I was with.

I made it, albeit with a bit of effort (on the first 2k of the descent I averaged over 200W with several 500-600W spikes after).

Still at the bottom of the climb I was pretty much back on plan. Or so I thought until I reached down to get a drink. My hand came up empty and on looking down I found I had lost one of my two sports drinks bottles. I guessed it must have become dislodged in my frenetic descent. This was pretty bad news because

• Sunny weather is great for riding but it tends to make you thirsty
• The first drinks stop was only 15km away but exactly at the point where I most wanted to be in a group. Stopping for drink meant riding alone.
• In an attempt to travel light (and being honest show of my Swiss top), I was not carrying my Camelback.

I had 500ml of drink to last 70km. Looking at my map I thought that the second drinks stop was going to be at the bottom of the second climb. So I stuck with the group when they skipped the frist stop and headed off down the A40 west of Brecon.

The group proved to be reasonably quick and we averaged 32kph on this stage. Not bad as the road is rolling with an uphill trend and the wind was blowing against us. Sadly, as often seems to be the case, it was not a very well organised group. One guy did about 50% of the work and I guess I along with a couple of others did the rest. 4-5 others just sat at the back (I guess they had the same plan as me....)

Come the end of the A40 the second climb started. The guy doing most of the work split from the front with another chap. I lost a bit of momentum on a turn and dropped from the back of the group. At first I was a bit distressed about this but happy to say I kept a cool head and got into a steady climbing rythm, being very conscious that I did not want to overcook myself going to hard. The climb was a relatively steady one of 5km at 4.5% and I motored along at 280W. Reassuringly the gap to the group steadied, then as the climb continued narrowed. Finally as the climb neared the summit I went through the group and actually finished on top with just the couple of others ahead. I could see one of them so I engaged 53x11 and set of in pursuit. This bit was fun, I did a 6k stretch at 48kph average (though an average power of 215W). I eventually caught the guy ahead. As we moved on to the third climb I thought I would be pretty sure to be able to stick with a group to the next drinks stop.

However my maths was slightly out and I found we were climbing again with no drinks stop in sight. Climb 3 came in 2 halves. During the first half I was getting thirstier and thirstier and when it kicked in again I had to take it a bit easy. (Part 1 was 272W, part 2 234W). When I got to the top and found still no drinks I realised I would have to throttle back. I let the group go on and motored along at a more steady pace, doing climb 4 at 244W.

When I got to the drinks stop at the top I had to take several minutes to drink as much as I could and find out that unfortunately there were no spare bidons.

When I set off from climb 4 I was alone and spent most of the rest of the ride catching/being caught by various groups. I was wary of running out of drink so kept things easy, climbing in the 240s rather than 260s up climbs 5 and 6. At the top of 6 a second very welcome drinks stop was made.

We then swooped down for a long section. So long in fact I thought that the profile was wrong as it promised a final climb. But then we headed off the main road and sure enough the final climb came. It turned out to be a cracker, very much like a mini Alp. My Powertap turned out to be very helpful, I set out to average 260W and as a result made it comfortably. I was joined by another rider and together we swooped down to the final run into the finish.

As I knew from yesterdays recce this had a couple of nasty little climbs, but knowledge gained helped a lot and got me and my fellow rider back to the finish where I was rewarded with a gold medal