Brianrobinson challenge....Grand days riding

AGuppy

What a great days riding 77 miles , 2500m of ascent, good organisation and great marshalling. Get it in your diary for next year.
Guppy

MatthewBulmer

Totally agree. It was my first sportive and I had a fantastic time. The mass start was great, Holme Moss was quality, and the marshalling was teriffic. What a great day.

popette

yes, what a brilliant day. I was absolutely buzzing on the way home. The route was great - climbs were long and sometimes tough, the descents were absolutely fantastic and a great reward for all that uphill toiling. The marshals were excellent - no chance of signs being taken down. Food stops were just what I was after. I quite enjoyed the thrill of the mass start - good preparation for being around loads of riders at the Etape. I got recognised by a few people, which is always lovely. I had a few bleak moments though: on the moor - wow, that wind just sapped my energy and the climb just seemed to go on forever. On one fantastic descent, someone spat and it flew through the air in a wonderful arc and landed with a splat on my arm. I didn't want to wipe it off so it just sat there! Kind of funny though.
AND, I did 6hrs and some seconds - much quicker than I expected to finish, which I was delighted with. Bronze!! yee haw! I will definitely come back and I'm going for silver.

I love riding sportives so much!

Svendo

I wholeheartedly agree, brilliant day out and no rain. Wearing my overshoes clearly worked! I think the route worked much better this way than last year when Holme Moss was the fourth big climb.
I saw ColinJ at the start, but you were fetteling your bike and didn't see me. I also saw Popette at the end, in fact it was I that said you don't have to hand your number in, just give your surname. I was well chuffed with my time, I was aiming for 6 and maybe hoping for 5:45, ended up with 5:10!
I was feeling so much fitter than last year, I started piling on the pace out of Delph over Close Moor, local knowledge giving me confidence I could make the finish without bonking. I passed loads of riders and one car going down into Marsden, although I was cursing every little rise from Meltham to the finish I'd forgotten about on the way out.
After a butty and chips I decided to ride back to Rochdale Via Elland, Sowerby Bridge and the Calder Valley to get my century for the day

BasilBrushTheFirst

Had a good time - agree with the comments about the windy climb to the top of the moor - completely energy sapping & seemed to go on forever.
Several of us made it around 79-80 miles, my computer stopped working for a while and it still reads 78..
Also did it in a tad under 6 hours.

ColinJ

I logged the ride on my GPS and made it 124 km - ish (77 miles) so that should be accurate. I clocked myself doing 72 kph (45 mph) off Holme Moss. Without the wind, it would have been quite a bit faster so in a kind of glad-to-be-alive way, I'm grateful the wind slowed me down! Incidentally, johnbirkby46213 had a dose of the dreaded shimmy on that descent again! This time he was watching for it and got it under control before it got too violent.

I enjoyed the event, in a painful kind of way! (usual backache problems)

Yep, great organisation apart from lack of refreshments at the end for me and fellow late-finishers.

The good weather compared to the Kirklees Sportive last year made a big difference and I preferred doing the hills in the new sequence.

I suffered a bit more than I had to because a last minute change of bikes increased my lowest climbing gear by 25.5%! :shock:

I'll write it up for my blog later.

PS I forgot - I rode an extra 14 miles to and from where I got my lift from John, but they were pretty flat miles and not a problem. That made my distance for the day about 91 miles. I toyed with riding to Todmorden and back from Hebden Bridge to make my ride up to a century but decided against it on the grounds that I could have done it fairly easily and it was a bit contrived. If there had been a longer flat route home I'd have taken that but I didn't fancy travelling up and down the A646 for no reason. I spend too much time on that road anyway. I could have gone back up on the hills again, but something told me that I'd done enough hills for the day!