Little Dipper Sportive

Stumpy Ade

Anyone do this on Sunday?

It was my first Sportive and although I really enjoyed it I was absolutly shattered. I probably went at it a bit hard but I was just wondering if it was considered tough (especially the 3rd climb) or do I just need to toughen up.

jhop

I rode the Big Dipper which even as an experienced Sportive rider I found challenging and as hard as any other UK hilly 100 mile event that I have ridden. We were up and down all day long. Although the climbs, understandably for the Chilterns, are not particularly long they certainly come thick and fast and I would be interested to know what the total climbing for the whole ride came to.
The number of entrants was comparatively low and unlike most sportives right from the individual start there were few groups formed and it seemed that everyone pretty much rode alone.

Stumpy Ade

Cheers jhop

That reassures me a bit. I suspect I will need to look at my gearing though.

onthefells

did the Big Dipper too but was ready for the hills as I live on the route. was a toughie but the weather was ideal...you wouldn't have wanted to do some of those descents in the wet at full speed!!

looking at the 'results' its clear aome people went the wrong way on the Big Dipper as there are a number of vitually identical 'improbably' fast times for the second split given the times the riders did for the first splits!!

jhop

I too live on the route and had ridden every road one way or the other before.
There was plenty of scope there for some corner cutting either deliberately or not and some of the times certainly look a bit distorted.

timhyde

I devised the route last year (although had nothing to do with the organising of the event) and I calculated it at 2287 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/29722017

I did the whole route and luckily it was dry, there would have been more punctures in the wet...but you can't avoid that in the Chilterns as the lanes are very flinty!

I tried to make it testing, so hopefully most people found it ok and not too hard!

Tim

onthefells

a guy who I ended up riding the last few miles with had only done 83 miles on his speedo at the end and knew he's gone wrong twice...he joked he'd done the medium dipper....however he didnt 'dob in' at the finish so was a dnf...some of the others who went the wrong way clearly did 'dob in'

I think the one mistake was made on a bend which had one of those blue/green arrows pointing straight on as I stopped there just to check...however the actual route carried on to the right and to be fair to the organisors nobody should have turned off where there wasn't a flourescent sign.

jhop

I have just heard from a friend who posted a 6h 10m time yet rode the last split in 2h 30m which seemed a bit odd to me but he too says he rode a 'Mid Dipper' of about 83 miles which seems much more in line with what I would have expected.

When I arrived at the bottom of 'WindMill Hill at Fingest the straight on sign for The Big Dipper was down and a rider was replacing it. All that I saw was a left turn arrow. Fortunately as I knew the route I wasn't fooled maybe some were?

onthefells

jhop, I know there was a slight problem there but what I can't reconcile is that there are at least 10 people who covered the last 34miles in between 1.30 and 1.40 after taking between 4.20 and 5.20 to do the first 69 miles....ie they averaged well over 20mph for the last 34 miles after doing 15mph and less for the first 69 miles!!

if you look at the 'proper' fast boys (not me I hasten to add!!) who did the first checkpoint in well under 4 hours they were taking over 1.40 and up to 2 hrs for the last 34 miles. these riders included a few very good local club cyclists

jhop

Thanks you make an interesting point and there do seem to be some anomalies in the times.
I know it is an individual thing but I do to some degree benchmark my own performance against that of other riders. And although I had a great day despite several punctures it was a bit demoralising to see so many fast times.

When the rider I referred to above confirmed he had only ridden 133.4 km and so achieved a similar performance to me I noticably cheered up!