Duncton Sportive 15th May
Runner2Cycling
Posts: 36
I took part in the above yesterday and overall I thought this was a good event - a very challenging course with a seemingly endless serious of climbs both small and large (my Garmin reckoned about 2800m if that is to be believed).
There were plenty of fast sections too with quite reasonable road surfaces - including one mile straight down where I averaged 30mph !
However I didn't enjoy many of the narrow connecting lanes, many of which had truly atrocious surfaces - I was amazed I didn't puncture as I passed many people who did - we even had to do a mile on a very recently resurfaced lane with half an inch of loose gravel - stones were twanging all around but my tyres somehow stayed intact.
The signage was good except for one T-junction at about 45 miles where the sign must have fallen off - debated which way to go - even whether to go back a few miles - but when a load more riders came down someone suggested we turn right and try and rejoin the route - as it happened we should have turned left - however, we did manage to eventually rejoin the route but this added 5.5 miles).
My eventual time would have equated to a Gold standard for my age-group (50+) so slightly miffed, but the distance, 91.5 miles, is a good warm-up for the Dragon ride !
There were plenty of fast sections too with quite reasonable road surfaces - including one mile straight down where I averaged 30mph !
However I didn't enjoy many of the narrow connecting lanes, many of which had truly atrocious surfaces - I was amazed I didn't puncture as I passed many people who did - we even had to do a mile on a very recently resurfaced lane with half an inch of loose gravel - stones were twanging all around but my tyres somehow stayed intact.
The signage was good except for one T-junction at about 45 miles where the sign must have fallen off - debated which way to go - even whether to go back a few miles - but when a load more riders came down someone suggested we turn right and try and rejoin the route - as it happened we should have turned left - however, we did manage to eventually rejoin the route but this added 5.5 miles).
My eventual time would have equated to a Gold standard for my age-group (50+) so slightly miffed, but the distance, 91.5 miles, is a good warm-up for the Dragon ride !
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Comments
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I know what you mean about the recent resurfacing...I managed to get a stone lodged between my front fork & tyre, which has left a lovely groove. New tyres needed :roll:0
