Gtr Manchester

volvine wrote:

Hi all
is there any sportives in or around Manchester if so how far how tough ect and how do you enter
cheers

Sportives in Manchester would be made pretty tough by the sheer volume of traffic - I'd recommend sticking to events outside the city itself...

The Pendle Pedal is a very tough sportive in Lancashire in August.

There is a thread about this year's event here and a thread about last year's event here.

Details including entry form here.

You might like to have a go at The Manchester 100 in September. That's 100 miles from the fringes of Manchester out into Cheshire and back. It's got a few sharp little hills but is generally considered to be a pretty easy century ride. Of course if you decide to ride quickly, you can make it as hard as you like. Fast riders get round in well under 5 hours. I usually take about 6, but I'm not quick. Details here.

The Cheshire Cat at the end of March, starting from Knutsford, and the Leek Legbreaker in July (a little further out in Leek but still within easy drive of Manchester).

volvine wrote:

the cheshire cat what is that? the timming of that suites better as prep for my july John O'Groats to Lands End.

http://www.kilotogo.com/cheshirecat2008.htm

volvine wrote:

Cheers for that
my other fear is that all the entrents will be a lot better than me and i will be the last to finish in the dark i have done the british heart foundation ride over the edge ride is the standard similar or ten times better???

Which of the 3 rides did you do? According to the BHF website, there are Bronze, Silver and Gold rides of 22, 29 or 55 miles respectively. The Gold standard ride includes quite a few of my local hills so I'm very familiar with them. To be honest, a typical sportive would probably be equivalent to doing two of those Gold BHF Over The Edge rides back to back. If you were okay doing one Gold ride, you should be able to work up to doing double that by later in the year. If you struggled, then you'd have to make quite an improvement first.

As for other people being a lot better than you... Unless you are very fit, that will usually be the case. For example, when I did the Pendle Pedal last year I came 191st out of 196 finishers! It doesn't really matter - there is still the satisfaction of completing the challenge. It might take a number of years for you to get fit enough to do a full sportive quickly. It might be an idea to start off on shorter events and when you are happy with them, move up to the longer ones. Both the Pendle Pedal and Manchester 100 events I mentioned have 100 km versions for people who don't feel ready to tackle 100 miles.

There is always plenty of time to get round in daylight! It would be pretty awful to get stuck out in the middle of nowhere at night, but unless you really overreach yourself, that shouldn't happen. If you have coped with a ride with 75% of the distance/climbing before an event, you could probably push yourself a bit harder and finish the full event route. Just make sure you don't start off too quickly, and eat and drink plenty.

Good luck with your JOGLE!

volvine wrote:

cheers m8 i did the gold route i have done it twice now but on a mtb so would like to think i would be a fair bit quicker on my road bike if you are saying it is twice as hard as that then i think a bit more training is required cause there are some good climbs in that event as you know heptonstall hill mythenroyd hill which claimes to be the longest continual hill in the country but like i said i have not done it on my road bike.
but very useful information thanks very much i may tackle the shorter cheshire cat to get a feel for it first.

Oh, yes, a road bike will be a lot quicker (assuming that you had knobbly tyres on the MTB). I once did a 30 mile round trip on my MTB to a bike shop to discuss buying my new road bike. It felt like doing about 45 miles on the road bike. Gold Over The Edge on your MTB would be more like doing 80 miles on your road bike. Sounds like you are almost ready for a century!