Tour of Wessex 2015
topcattim
Posts: 766
Any other 3 day survivors out there? This was the fifth time I've done it, I think, and my favourite time of all. I always find the ToW the friendliest of all the sportives I do - some great chats going on in the bunch (for the first 50 miles of each day, until we ran out of puff!), and some great groups forming. Unusually for the curse of the ToW, the weather was pretty favourable - I've got some great mitt-lines to prove it.
The route as usual was excellent, such a superb part of the country, and I particularly enjoyed the time on top of Exmoor - usually it has been too cold and windy to really enjoy it, but this time was pretty pleasant.
Feed stops were great - those min-pasties were excellent, and it was generally well marshalled and signed. The only gripe was that the gpx route was often very different from the signed route. Although we tried to follow the signs not the gpx, this meant that when the signs had been turned round by the inevitable "jokers", we couldn't rely on the gpx to steer us back, leading to some unnecessary extra miles.
I had thought that this might have been my last ToW, but I'm already thinking about next year. For anyone considering it, I'd thoroughly recommend it!
The route as usual was excellent, such a superb part of the country, and I particularly enjoyed the time on top of Exmoor - usually it has been too cold and windy to really enjoy it, but this time was pretty pleasant.
Feed stops were great - those min-pasties were excellent, and it was generally well marshalled and signed. The only gripe was that the gpx route was often very different from the signed route. Although we tried to follow the signs not the gpx, this meant that when the signs had been turned round by the inevitable "jokers", we couldn't rely on the gpx to steer us back, leading to some unnecessary extra miles.
I had thought that this might have been my last ToW, but I'm already thinking about next year. For anyone considering it, I'd thoroughly recommend it!
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Comments
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Yep 3 day survivor here...
Thats the first time I have done all 3 days. It was tough, but I am really pleased I completed it.
I've done Day 1 & Day 3 before, but day 2 was new to me, well some of it was as I live in Yeovil so not far from the start.
Managed to find a few groups to ride with, but yesterday was more difficult.
Organisation was spot on as normal. I didnt follow my Garmin I just followed the signs and didnt really have an issue, I think they had to change the route for day 3 due to a road closure so that might explain why the GPX file didnt track, I did hear other riders saying the same thing.
I hope the riders I saw being attended to by the paramedics on Saturday are OK and then guy in the lunch stop on Day 2 at Wareham who was covered with gravel rash is OK.
I thought the riding standards were better this year, but there were still people fighting a bit IMHO to hard to get into the back of a group and not riding courteously because of it. Although these were in the minority and why cant people take their Gel wrappers home with them. But that's not really the fault of the organisers...
If I really had to gripe it why did the put the 2nd feed at the bottom of Porlock Hill on Day 3, it wasnt a massive distance from Feed 1 and it left a long ride to get to the third feed. I guess logistically its hard to find a place to put that second feed,
I really enjoyed it and I really feel like I have accomplished something massive over the last 3 days thats been on my bucket list to do for a few years now.0
