Can I tag along (Spud Riley)

Tonymufc

Is anyone willing to take pity on this poor soul and let me tag along on the Spud Riley. If there's any takers I'll give you my email/mobile and we can arrange where to meet and what time. Maybe even a training ride before hand. Many many thanks Tony. P.s. United 5-2 Spurs.

Tonymufc

That'll be a no then.

Chubby on a compact

Is this a tag along on a freebe or have you paid to enter?

Tonymufc

No freebie here mate I signed up months ago. I just didn't want to ride it on my own. Thought it would be a good way to meet some other forum users. I'm assuming the reason no one has replyed to the post is that they are under the assumption that I haven't paid and just lookin for a free ride. This is the first of three that I'm doing this year. Cheers Tony (non freebie sportive rider). :shock:

a_n_t

sure there is a thread somewhere about doing a training ride for this? Get yourself on that maybe?

Old Tuggo

When you ride the Spud Riley you can tag along with any group you feel that are going at your pace. It is a hard circuit and you are bound to catch groups and be overtaken by other groups so you will probably find yourself latching on to various groups throughout the ride. Nobody will mind as long as you ride sensibly, safely, smoothly, take your turn at making the pace and do not try to prove how good you are.

Chubby on a compact

Agree with Old Tuggo. All the sportives I enter I turn up on my own. Sooner or later you find a group to ride with. However it is more difficult to find a group to ride with on the hillier sportives because the different levels of fittness. I rode this route last year on the Spud Riley and there are 16 climbs on it and unless your evenly matched you will either drop or be dropped. There is a full field for this event so there will be plenty to ride with. However don't expect much conversation over the last couple of climbs as most will be knackered.

Tonymufc

Cheers fella's, Tony.

Higs

The Spud will only be my second sportive so I obviously don't have a wealth of experience but on my first (Lakeland Loop) I found it difficult to get into a group for any length of time.

I've found groups forming in running events and also MTB enduro events but not in my one sportive. I think there may be two reasons for this:
1) the staggered start - if I find myself on the same piece of road as someone, there's a good chance they started either an hour after me or an hour before me so will be naturally quicker or slower accordingly.
2) the disparity between people's ability climbing, descending & on the flat. I'm a big fella, reasonably fit and not worried about going downhill fast. I found that if I was keeping up with someone on the flat, they'd leave me on the climbs. If I was keeping up with someone on the climbs, I'd leave them when we went down the other side.

Small groups would form and break up, depending on who the ups/flats/downs came these groups would either be people I'd seen before or new people.

Higs
(MUFC too)