jodrell bank sportive

bugsrabbit

Has any body ridden this one before? I only started sportives last year and got hooked, so i thought the 50 mile ride might be a good early season warm up. I've spoken to the organisers and they say you can pay on the day which may be an advantage with the recent weather in mind.

Anonymous

My issue is the fact it's on Mother's day!

If I was to do this I would get castrated by MrsNapD.

Westerberg

jodrell bank - isn't that rhyming slang for.........

Anonymous

Westerberg wrote:

jodrell bank - isn't that rhyming slang for.........

Lairy Manc?

bugsrabbit

I know the better half has pointed that out, cycling or mum? Hmm

andy_wrx

Surely no Manc would use a Southernism like 'lairy'...

Anonymous

No. No, they wouldn't.

But they don't use rhyming slang either...

fungus_the_muffin_man

This is the first time its been run. However myself and a couple of mates did a dry run of it the other week. Its a nice flatish fast 50 miler with a couple of bumps just to get the legs throbbing abit. It was however a bit cowshitty in places so if your behimnd someone make sure they have mud guards on. I'll be doing the 80 with some mates.

My mum can wait till later to get her milk tray and. £3 morrisons flowers

tlw1

would be a dead man if I missed mothers day again (on a rally last year).

TomF

jodrell bank - isn't that rhyming slang for.........

Judging by the proposed route, I should consider that a complment....

Steve_b77

Pretty certian I'm doing it.

Should be signing up for the 80 with a mate - you can pay on the day can't you?

As for mothers day, my mum's getting a bike related pressie - some of those ergo grips for her bike

bugsrabbit

yes you can pay on the day, i rang the organisers.

Steve_b77

Excellent news

JohnnyAllez

One week to go Hope it`s not as frosty NEXT Sunday as it is this morning :shock: - 8 degrees when I got up at 7.30, and it`s still showing - 3 at 9.45 am Sun is out now though. No ride `til later for me, been down hard once this year, not doing it again :roll:

bugsrabbit

I thought thought the same, went out at 8 this morning for a pedal. Bloody freezing!!

Garz

bugsrabbit wrote:

I thought thought the same, went out at 8 this morning for a pedal. Bloody freezing!!

Me too, was near freezing and with downhill sections felt really chilly!

fungus_the_muffin_man

Following on from doing the MMH on yesterday I'll be doing this one with some of the guys I'm doing the L2P with. Now I know I have the legs on me to do the full distance I think I'll be doing that. Though if it ends up being a bit of a blustery day along those openish headwind encouraging lanes. I might opt to the the 50 and push it as hard as I can for a fast time.

If the weathers stays as it is today Its going to be a great day to be out around the cheshire lanes

Steve_b77

Looks like the weather is going to be ok, around 6 deg c for most of the day with some westerly winds

JohnnyAllez

Great day out for the Radar Raiders Steady 50 mile run, good route, well signed, good feed-stops, well organised generally

cjw

A few of us did the 80 miler and have to say we were incredibly dissapointed.

Usually at these events (especially for £20+) you get food + coffee / tea at the end, safety motorcycles, decent parking and decent facilities at HQ.

There was no free food or drink at the end (you had to buy it) :evil: Registration took fever as there were only 2 PC working. No safety bikes, bugger all parking at the event, most of us parked down the streets and the toilets were overrflowing :x

Basical you pad £20 to follow some signs and pick up a biddon and a few gels.

Compare to the MMH last weekend with good parking, good facilities, free food and drinks at end and cost only £10.

Overall very unimpressed and will not attend another of this set again.

Pokerface

cjw wrote:

A few of us did the 80 miler and have to say we were incredibly dissapointed.

Usually at these events (especially for £20+) you get food + coffee / tea at the end, safety motorcycles, decent parking and decent facilities at HQ.

There was no free food or drink at the end (you had to buy it) :evil: Registration took fever as there were only 2 PC working. No safety bikes, bugger all parking at the event, most of us parked down the streets and the toilets were overrflowing :x

Basical you pad £20 to follow some signs and pick up a biddon and a few gels.

Compare to the MMH last weekend with good parking, good facilities, free food and drinks at end and cost only £10.

Overall very unimpressed and will not attend another of this set again.

Isn't that more or less the same for ALL sportives?

You're paying someone else for the right to ride on public roads and follow a route that they planned out. Oh - and fill your water bottle every now and again. :roll:


The one or two sportives that are run on closed roads are worth the entry. Otherwise you might as well just get on your bike and ride.

Velonutter

CJ it was £25 not £20, sounds like it was a pish poor affair!

Anonymous

Can't believe anyone pays to ride on public roads. I would only do a sportive if on closed roads...

sturmey

£25 is a bit steep for a few yellow signs and some water refills.

You could buy a pair of pedals for that.
Or a pair of tyres.
Or one very nice tyre.
Or ten inner tubes...

cw42

cjw wrote:

A few of us did the 80 miler and have to say we were incredibly dissapointed.

Usually at these events (especially for £20+) you get food + coffee / tea at the end, safety motorcycles, decent parking and decent facilities at HQ.

There was no free food or drink at the end (you had to buy it) :evil: Registration took fever as there were only 2 PC working. No safety bikes, bugger all parking at the event, most of us parked down the streets and the toilets were overrflowing :x

Basical you pad £20 to follow some signs and pick up a biddon and a few gels.

Compare to the MMH last weekend with good parking, good facilities, free food and drinks at end and cost only £10.

Overall very unimpressed and will not attend another of this set again.

Did the 50, and although a good route, the parking, marshalling and food stations could of been better organised and stocked. No food at the end was a dissapointment too. I did the Cat&Fiddle challenge last year, and that was much better organised for your £25.

RonB

Did the 80 too and I was suprised that the first of the 2 feed stops came after 47 miles.

I was glad I turned up early. Parking for later arrivals did seem difficult. Oh well live & learn.

fungus_the_muffin_man

This was the worst sportive I've attended so far. But teh one I've had the best laugh at solely due to the camaraderie the group had.

So what went wrong

Firstly - its not good to roll up to a sportive to less than adequate parking so that you have to park 200m down the road.

Second - I want to log on quickly and efficently. not stand around for 10 minutes

Thirdly - I want to be able to go into a semi decent toilet not one swimming in pee and a toilet bowl lasagne made from layers of poo and bog roll. And this was before the sportive had started.

Fourth - On the 80 mile route many off the markers were missing. Especially at cross roads and junctions after the timing point. We then carried on in the direction we thought was right. After getting back onto the markers it wasn't untill we came to a familiar junction that we realised we'd somehow managed to get back on the loop by about 10 miles. We back tracked on ourselves but were unable to find the markers we need meaning we ended up at Manchester airport....... Yes I know, but its not a route that any of us are familiar with though some of us had a basic knowledge of the area.

Fifth - the one and only feed stop we got onto then was the last one ( we managed to get back on track albeit with not long to go) Which only had gels and fluids. There was not one on the extra 80 mile loop as we'd been led to believe there was.

Sixth - On arriving back at the centre and following having to pay the princely sum of £25 to not even get a cup of tea free is somewhat scandalous. The last sportive the organiser did invloved a free curry at the end.
Even last week on the £10 mad march hare you got free tea, coffee and bacon muffin/ burger or veggie alternative.

£25 for this was the biggest rip off I've ever seen.

People may scoff at others for paying money to ride public roads. I think that sportives offer people routes they wouldn't normally ride with the added incentive of security from the sag wagon and other riders etc.. that you wouldn't get out on your own riding unfamiliar roads. Plus of course the feed stops don't mean you have to go loaded for bear. As you can get extr stuff as you ride.

There are good sportives and bad ones. This will definitely go down as a bad one in my book :evil:

jgsi

cw42 wrote:

cjw wrote:

I did the Cat&Fiddle challenge last year, and that was much better organised for your £25.

The C&F is not a sportive event and imo shouldnt really be lumped together into these other rather trashy events.

NJA

I did the 50 mile route and found it well signposted, I had travelled up from Peterborough to ride with a few friends from the area so could have got lost quite quickly without the route marking.

I enjoyed the ride and chatted with some nice people on the way round which is - to me at any rate - the attraction of this type of ride.

Other than that it was poorly organised, registration was a farce and £2 for tea and cake at the end was an insult.

Still I am sure that the organisers had lots of hidden expenses.

Arsesix

I enjoyed the 80 mile to honest,except for the windy bits.
I did however find the timing a bit strange,a friend of mine started the same time as me but I finished ahead yet there official time was several mins in front on results page.My garmin was 15 mins difference and I certainly didn't take that long getting a gel bar...

Steve_b77

It was my first experience of a Sportive and I really enjoyed it, despite the wind.

So in the future I can expect better organisation, which is nice.

The timing baffled me a bit too as my computer showed 4hrs 52mins and my official time was 5hrs 9mins, so that was one helluva snack break

Either way I set myself a target of 5 hours for the 80 miles and as it was the first time I've ever ridden more than 45 miles i was well impressed I made it and on target, despite a dodgy bit at around 60-65 miles when I ran out of energy, a quick couple of gels and a cereal bar sorted that for a stonking last 15 miles, well chuffed.

SOunds a bit crazy but I actually enjoyed the climbs at the end too