Etape du Gales!

ugo.santalucia

Anyone did the Etape du Dales yesterday?

The wind on the moors was mental... soul destroying to take 2 hours 15 to cover the 25 miles between feed zone 1 and 2...

But in the end... what a fantastic event in a beautiful part of the world!

Alain Quay

Well done.

I was just going to post, is this the windiest 'Spring' in a long time?

GAWOOD

It was mad wasn't it? Saw a couple of guys pulling themselves out of a ditch near the top of Tan Hill! :shock:

Was a pretty nice day apart from the wind.

Thought the organisation was fantastic as usual.

ugo.santalucia

the organisation was spot on... great to see an ambulance on top or at the bottom of all the main descents... they are treacherous on a good day and yesterday Fleet Moss was scary and the other descents weren't far off.

Food stations well organised and with plenty on offer. It's just a fantastic event... everything is dow to the last detail, even the pocket map they supply is printed on plastified paper that doesn't get soggy...

good standard of riding too by the locals... didn't see any accident... shame for the wind, but at least it didn't rain

Phil33

My fourth year at the EdD. The previous three events have all had good weather so I was kind of expecting it to be bad this year.

The wind was horrible and dangerous too. I managed to fall off just before the summit of Tan Hill when I lost concentration for a couple of seconds and a big gust caught my front wheel. I'd only just got back on and a chap to my left had the same thing happen. The descents were 'interesting' too. I took two hours longer than last year, which shows how bad it was. I also noticed more people than normal walking up the Coal Road, maybe because they were knackered after fighting such strong winds.

I still enjoyed it though. It's a fantastic route with hardly any traffic and it's always well organised. The food stops were well stocked with real food and I, for one, didn't miss the energy gels. The sandwiches went down a treat.

My only niggle is that the results have yet to appear despite being promised the same day.

tlr

Results were out last night:

http://www.chiptiming.co.uk/results/?sport=2&year=2015&event=443&race=3318&sort=chip

Not too convinced of their accuracy though, 5 out of the top 20 are people who cut the course short. I'm not for a second suggesting deliberate cheating, but the timing system doesn't seem to worry too much how many checkpoints you registered.

Hardest day I've had on a bike I think, I was aiming for sub 6.30, but I only just made sub 7, not an easy day, and a very good effort by everyone who completed it.

ugo.santalucia

Wow... I am in the top half....

Those 5:50 times look a bit suspicious... wasn't the course record 5:43 or something?

GAWOOD

One of the lads I know did 06:30 and he thought that was second fastest. I think 06:23 was the fastest.

tlr

I'd agree, I think 6.23 was the quickest. He was the first rider with all the checkpoints. Makes sense, 30 minutes off the normal time for the wind!

There were some very tired bodied around at the finish.

cste

I entered for the first time ( actually my first event all together! ) Only rode my first century on a training ride just over a week ago, but luckily i live close enough to the route to include fleet moss and coal road on said training ride :-)
Really enjoyed it, apart from Tan Hill with THAT wind!! We won't mention times......but i was happy to have enough left in the tank to really push on in the last 20 miles, and even earn a few PB's on the run back to start/finish line :-)

Thank god it wasn't raining too!

ugo.santalucia

cste wrote:

I entered for the first time ( actually my first event all together! ) Only rode my first century on a training ride just over a week ago, but luckily i live close enough to the route to include fleet moss and coal road on said training ride :-)
Really enjoyed it, apart from Tan Hill with THAT wind!! We won't mention times......but i was happy to have enough left in the tank to really push on in the last 20 miles, and even earn a few PB's on the run back to start/finish line :-)

Thank god it wasn't raining too!

Baptism of fire... sportives don't get much tougher than this

drlodge

I'm hoping to stay up there near Semerwater end June/July and will try and do this route!

ugo.santalucia

drlodge wrote:

I'm hoping to stay up there near Semerwater end June/July and will try and do this route!

You should enter the Etape next year... it's a cracking event and the Dave Rayner fund who organise it is a really good cause, as opposed to the money spinning charities that other events support (often to a very small extent)

read all about it:

http://www.daveraynerfund.co.uk/

DeVlaeminck

Sounds like a good one and will definitely put it on my list for next year.

ugo.santalucia

Interesting that fewer than 20 riders managed to do a sub 7 hours, the gold standard... that is out of 828 finishers, so around 2%... :shock:

DubaiNeil

Ugo,

Do you have access to any %age figures for previous years? A couple of friends of mine did it this year, and one was gutted to do 7:14 so miss out on Gold. Would be nice to "comfort" him with the fact that he would have "easily" made it in previous years

ugo.santalucia

DubaiNeil wrote:

Ugo,

Do you have access to any %age figures for previous years? A couple of friends of mine did it this year, and one was gutted to do 7:14 so miss out on Gold. Would be nice to "comfort" him with the fact that he would have "easily" made it in previous years

Funny enough, they were up until yesterday, now replaced by the 2015. In his "speed" group, he should have lost around 30-40 minutes to the wind, in my speed group is more like 50-60.
He did extremely well, surely in the top 10%, if not in the top 5%

tlr

17 people out of 828 were sub 7 in 2015 (once the erroneous results are removed).

89 people out of 885 were sub 7 in 2014, so yes, the Gold was achieved by the top 10% last year.

Your pal was about 36th, so would have been very likely to get a gold time under normal conditions.

A friend of mine did 6.32 last year, and 7.16 this year, despite improving on his Whitton time this year compared with last year.

nunowoolmez

Yep, toughest day in the saddle i've had by far & i've had many weather related bad times. Never seen so many broken dejected grey faces 50 miles into a ride. I did this in 2013 & the tan hill section took me 15 minutes more this time than that year. The first steep quick descent (forget the name) was absolutely terrifying. People all over the place trying to keep the bikes straight & on the tarmac. My front wheel was flapping around like a sheet in the wind! Didn't really enjoy the ride but it was character building stuff. Was hoping to smash my time from 2013 but the wind blew thar out the window. Well done to all who did it...

ugo.santalucia

nunowoolmez wrote:

Yep, toughest day in the saddle i've had by far & i've had many weather related bad times. Never seen so many broken dejected grey faces 50 miles into a ride. I did this in 2013 & the tan hill section took me 15 minutes more this time than that year. The first steep quick descent (forget the name) was absolutely terrifying. People all over the place trying to keep the bikes straight & on the tarmac. My front wheel was flapping around like a sheet in the wind! Didn't really enjoy the ride but it was character building stuff. Was hoping to smash my time from 2013 but the wind blew thar out the window. Well done to all who did it...

Fleet Moss was terrifying, I agree and Tan Hill was soul destroying, but other than that I did enjoy the day, in a bizarre way... I was there for the views more than the time... I traveled up north to ride a tough event and boy it was tough... I think the great organisation made the day... imagine getting to the feeding zones and finding out they have ran out of food or water, or imagine missing signage (not that it is a difficult course to follow, but.. ) that would have been far more annoying than the wind, which is part of the game plan up the moors, to be fair.
Even SImon Warren mentions that Tan Hill is an easy climb, but it can become a tough one because it is so exposed

nunowoolmez

Yes I totally agree the organisation & logistics of it are superb & the bacon roll at the end was well recieved! Just goes to show that events like this are at the mercy of the elements & moderate climbs can be made murderous! I absolutely tonked it on the final descent onward & was suprised that I had the reserves to push it, thankfully we were out of the wind by then!

lakesluddite

Signed up for it, then 24 hours beforehand came down with debilitating head cold and full on snot-fest, so couldn't participate. Reading these posts I don't know whether to be glad or sad that I missed it!

Well done to those that made it round.

I'll try again next year, if I don't get into the Fred Whitton (or maybe do both!).