In search of Lance in the south of France! - 29th/30th May - by Chris

The long awaited trip to Antibes, for some intensive pre Etape hill training finally came around.

Together with our wives, Simon and I flew to Nice on Friday with our bikes neatly fitted in their bike boxes. We arrived at our hotel in Antibes, The Beau-Site while it was pouring rain although this soon gave way to warm sunshine.

After a superb meal on the Friday evening at a great waterside restaurant, Le Cesar, we agreed to depart the following morning at 8am. Through Twitter we had picked up that none other than Lance Armstrong was staying locally and training in the same area. We resolved to get a photo with us and him together if we could.

Our planned route headed out of Antibes and finally made its way into the hills climbing up to the town of Vence and the over the Col de Vence (985m) before descending to Greolieres. After this there was another slog uphill to Greolieres Les-Neige at over 1400m. At this point and after a long stretch at a gradient of over 12% we both agreed the climbing for the day was over. We quickly turned around as dark rain clouds threatened to make it a tricky descent on wet roads.

The ride back to Greolieres was at speeds up to 46mph as we out ran the rain shower. A quick drink stop was taken before a more lengthy descent down the eastern side of a spectacular gorge. We eventually made our way into the outskirts of Antibes after approximately 30 miles downhill!

The final climb to the hotel in Cap de Antibes hurt, but it was two happy cyclists who soon rolled up alongside our sunbathing wives. We had completed 85 miles at an average pace of 12.5 mph. The total ascent was 2100m.

Saturday night saw us enjoy another very pleasant meal on the beach at Juan des Pines. This was followed by a deep sleep!

On Sunday we headed out of Antibes again, to the spectacular town of Grasse via Valbonne. A navigational error led to a small diversion to the village of Cabris but we were soon back on track at Saint Vallier de Thiey and climbed to the Col du Ferrier (1039m). There were lots of large groups of cyclists out, all immaculately dressed in their team kit as only the French can do!

After the Col, our legs were tired but we still managed an even steeper climb up to the Observatoire de la Cote D'Azur at 1265m. After this it was a fantastic descent first to Gourdon and then on to Valbonne again at very high speeds, breaking the record of previous day at 47mph. The speed limit was 30 mph!

After Valbonne, tired legs still allowed some fast riding, almost like a road race - 21mph uphill at one point! The ride had been shorter at only 65 miles but at an higher average speed of 13.4 mph and 1735m of climbing.

All in all, a great trip. My assessment of the benefit of our exploits sitting by the pool afterwards was that "The Etape won't be easy and the climbs will have to be ground out at our own pace, but baring injury, crashes and punctures should be within our capabilities" We'll see!

As for Lance, he was out training in the area and seen on the Col de Madone, but nowhere near us!

Another long, lone ride - Saturday 22nd May - By Chris

A family day out meant I had to miss the usual Sunday group ride. After a Friday night out in Manchester seeing Peter Kay (excellent!) I sat in the car the following morning until Warwick and then was kicked out by my wife and pedalled the rest of the way home.

My route followed a pretty direct course through Banbury, Woodstock, Witney, Wantage and up over the Ridgeway to skirt around Newbury to the west via Winterbourne, Stockcross and Marsh Benham.

The terrain was pretty flat in places but with some stiff 10% climbs near Banbury and then the final pull out of Wantage, all done in very hot conditions - 27 degrees C and almost no wind.

All in all 90.6 miles in 5 hours 42 minutes an average speed of 15.9 mph.

Within 20 mins of arriving home I was off out again to a "boys" night out watching the Champions League final. The first four beers went down in one gulp. After a long ride I figured I deserved it!

South of France next week.

Wayfarers trio win vets prize in 3-up 25 mile team time trial - By Chris

After an easy 25 mile ride on Saturday for all four Tourmalet riders, including Pete, finally back after his knee operation, this weekend finished on a high for three of us - Marwood, Simon and myself.

On Sunday, the three of us won the veterans prize of a bottle of fine Italian wine each for our efforts in a 3-up team time trial held on a fast but windy 25 mile course on the A3 near Liphook, Hampshire.

As Simon and I know all too well, it is easy to get psyched out at the start of these events while observing the impressive time trial bikes, skin suits and aero helmets used by the serious riders. As we got ready most of the participants were warming up on their turbo trainers and the sweet smell of embrocation filled the air. But not to be deterred we had a short warm-up ride and made off for the start.

There was a fair bit of piss-taking here by the three starters;

"Hey, these guys have got spokes in their wheels" one said (most riders in TT's now have disc or mag style wheels).

The name of our club also confused them "With a name like Wayfarers Wheelers are you going to stop off at the cafe?" said another. Ha ha, I thought.

Anyway, we didn't post a fast time but at 1:08:56 for the 25 miles, it was 10 minutes faster than my most recent solo effort over the same distance. And, thanks to our combined efforts, enough to win the vets prize. We achieved an average of 21.7 mph so it was also faster than the standard time expected for riders of our age.

Plus, as it was a new course, Marwood pointed out that we must now hold the veterans course record!

It was a very pleased but sheepish trio who went up to collect our wine at the presentation immediately after the event as we were all aware of the mind bogglingly impressive times posted by more experienced riders. But at least now we know what we can aim at and there is no way we would ride flat out in training in the same way, the element of competition clearly drives the pace.

The actual Hampshire Hilly 100 - Teamwork and Palpitations - By Simon

Having abandoned Chris to a solo and rather wet ride on Saturday, Simon, Steve and Stuart made an early start for the Hampshire Hilly on Sunday morning.

The event is one of the more popular rides on the circuit and had sold out weeks earlier. So, thinking ahead we had decided to arrive early to beat the queues for registration, unfortunately the 700 other entrants had the same idea! So after a rather lengthy check-in process we headed back to the car to don wind-proof jackets, leg warmers, arm warmers and winter gloves for the ride. The forecast North-Easterly was already setting in for the day, so much for a warm Spring day!

The three of us set off together, planning to spend the first half of the ride as a team before separating for Stuart take the shorter route. Stuart had been out for 4 weeks due to work commitments and an extended (thanks to the Icelandic volcano) business trip in the US, and sensibly opted for 60miles rather than the full 100. More on the ‘shorter route’ later.
The first 2 or 3 miles were the usual stretching and ambitious goal setting for the ride. With the first hill hit Simon and Steve pushed the pace slightly planning to ease off to let Stuart catch-up at the top, unbeknown to us, Stuart had taken an early puncture and was struggling to make a quick repair halfway up the hill. Being ‘team players’ we turned back and helped him make a quick repair and crack on….. No, I have to be honest, we did slow down slightly, but when he didn’t appear we abandoned him and pushed on – sorry Stuart!

So two became three for a while, until we were joined by another rider, ‘Mr. Bianchi’ who joined us. Having sat on our rear wheels for a couple of miles he kindly offered to take the front. This was a mistake, the pace quickly built-up to 20++mph with little let off on the hills! With only 10miles or so completed it was a mistake to push quite so hard at an early stage, we were to regret this later. ‘Mr. Bianchi’ soon realized that his temporary partners were not going to stick with his pace and he headed off with a new pair ‘Mr. Pinarello and Mr. Colnago’. Back on our own we started taking better note of our speed and pushed on towards the first feed station.
Refueled buy a great selection of cakes, bananas and energy drinks we cracked on into the stiff breeze managing to maintain a 16mph average with some strong through-and-off in the mid 20’s all good training for July.

The first third of the route had taken us along pleasant but unknown roads to the West and South of Winchester, It’s always more challenging when the hills are unknown and for me 40-60 miles is always a tough sector, so this was time to put your head down and push hard. Once we entered Alresford and started heading for Overton we were on familiar roads which made a huge difference and gave us both an extra boost.

We arrived at the control point in Hannington where our timing chips were read and we took a slightly longer break to take on liquid and more of the great selection of energy snacks.
Refreshed we headed on now very familiar ground over Sydmonton Hill and down along the Test Valley back towards the finish. Despite being passed by a few more ‘Mr Bianchis’ we were feeling pleased at holding a steady pace and confident of respectable finish times.

The last refreshment stop at 80 miles was very brief as we had both decided to make our final stop at 85miles to test our secret weapons, a Lucozade Alert Plus for me and a Red Bull Energy Shot for Steve. Taking note of the warnings ‘may cause heart palpitations’ ‘only one per day’! We knocked them back and carried on for the final push home.

It was with 15miles to go that we saw a familiar figure ahead, pushing a big gear head leaning to the left, it had to be Stuart, he’d had a tough ride, apart from the puncture, the ’60 mile’ route turned out to be a 78mile route which had just joined up with the 100 route that we were on. A baptism of fire for Stuart after missing 4 weeks, so well-done to him for battling round and finishing in a very respectable time. We decided to ride in together as a team……. briefly. The chance of a PB for a 100 miler and the buzz from the energy shots got the better of us and we pushed ahead, sorry again Stuart!

The last few miles were uneventful and completed at a surprisingly high speed, despite the final few hills that we had to contend with. All in all a great ride, with all of us making good times and getting another chunk of miles under our belts as July 18th looms closer.

The Hampshire Hilly 100 - a day early! - by Chris

A Confirmation service to attend and the last match of the Premier League season at Molineux meant I had no choice but to do my long weekend ride on Saturday.

The selection of a route was an easy one. I had signed up weeks before to do the Hampshire Hilly 100 mile sportive on the Sunday which I would now miss, so why not ride the course the day before?

And so I did, all on my own, in the rain and wind. Naturally, none of my usual group were interested in joining me, they were either in the actual Hampshire Hilly the next day or had other long Sunday rides planned.

The Hampshire Hilly route came within 3.5 miles of home, so just shave 7 miles off the course and I would have a perfect 100 mile ride. After a quick call to Garmin support I downloaded the route to my GPS and was very pleased with myself - all I had to do was follow the arrow on the screen. Little did I know this assumption would be short lived and within 5 miles or so the GPS would be telling me to do a 'U' turn and a few miles later would keep pausing and then switch off all together! The impact of this, in addition to my annoyance was that I would cover more than 100 miles.

In the end, while out on the road, I deleted the route from the GPS and carried on with the general map and time/speed/distance functions. I did however manage to follow the Hampshire Hilly route very closely, although I ended up well of course in Stockbridge at one point and circumnavigation of Winchester took a while. The rain here at it's heaviest.

Anyway, my route basically made a big loop around Winchester to the south and then back home via Alresford, Micheldever, Overton and Hannington.

I ran out of drinks after about 75 miles and had to wait until I reached Overton and a busy supermarket, where I received some strange looks in my wet mud stained kit, to replenish by bottles.

The last long climb up to Hannington required me to focus on other thoughts as the rain came on heavier again. The GPS at this point was showing 90 miles but my legs and in fact whole body told me it was longer.

I finally rolled into my drive after over 7.5 hours in the saddle. My GPS showing 7:08 for 100 miles, much slower than previous weeks. I calculated I had actually covered at least 110 miles taking into account the fact I hadn't stopped when the GPS was either off or paused. Good training though and character-building stuff. The total climb was 6500 feet, the greatest climbing total yet.

A welcome rest from long rides next week but more competition with a 10 mile time trial on Wednesday and 3 up team time trial on Sunday. I will let the others tell the story of the actual Hampshire Hilly!

The Sunday ride on a Saturday! By Chris

The forecast for tomorrow is so bad we brought forward the weekly "big" ride to today. The "we" being me, Simon and Steve.

During the week there had been many exchanges via Twitter about doing a 100 miler and so we did!

Basically, we followed the same route I used with Steve a couple of weeks ago. The good news is that we did it much faster. Just over 100 miles in 6:28, an average of 15.5 mph compared to my 14.6 mph previously. This was due to Steve and Simon keeping a good pace going with lots of thru 'n' off, especially in the closing miles- up to 23 mph and strong ride up to the top of Chute Causeway, quite impressive with the long ride "in" our legs!

We managed to avoid the rain too, it just started as we neared Highclere at the end. The ride was also almost puncture free, with Simon the only victim this week.

All agreed our best training ride to date; 100.5 miles and over 5000 feet of ascent. A few well contested village sign sprints but many left alone as we saved ourselves for the long ride.

Big challenge next weekend - the Hampshire Hilly 100 mile Sportive. Sadly, I might not make it due to a Confirmation service to attend. Small matter of a Bank Holiday 25 mile time trial and a 10 mile TT on Wednesday evening though. We'll see!