Joe was right when he said, “Beware of any race that has the word ‘challenge’ in it.” Another useful tip would be to look up both the ride profile and do a bit of research on the name of the ride.
“Chiltern” sounds so banal. I thought it might refer to town where the ride started or, perhaps, the hospital that benefitted from the fundraising associated with the ride. Little did I know that “Chiltern” referred to a famous set of hills: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiltern_Hills So, what in the world was I thinking when I signed up to ride 100 miles of hills? If this ride had been the New York region it might be called the Catskills Challenge or something and I would have been warned off.
Here is the ride profile from garminconnect.com: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7663802
So, after leaving Karen and Jamie’s wedding at a reasonable hour and forsaking alcohol at the reception, I left Dorchester at 5:00 am and arrived in Henley-on-Thames in time for an 8:00 am start.
The first 30 km were not pleasant. Straight out of the Henley Rugby Club and we were heading straight up 160 meters, back down 100 meters, up and down and then up 200 meters. Yes, all in the first 30 km.
The day was hot, I was jetlagged and was living on very little sleep and when the route split, separating the 100 mile from the 100 km riders, I decided that today I would do the metric century rather than the imperial century. Good choice!
Lovely countryside, but my butt was dragging. However, in the last 30 km I ended up riding alongside of two lovely women from London and Oxford. Janine (I think) commented on my NY Cycle Club jersey and we chatted a bit.. and I asked if I could grab her wheel. She snapped back, “Just as long as you don’t grab my ass.” I said, “No maam” but was thinking that it would have been very difficult to a) catch her; b) find anything much to grab. The two of them pulled my ragged butt at about 30-35 km/hr over the last part of the ride.
The funny thing about this ride was that they had a full lunch at the second to last rest stop. I kind of like cookies, bananas and water at my rest stops and would prefer to finish the ride before having lunch. However, I guess the set-up was for a more leisurely rider who would stop, eat, digest and then get back on the road to finish.
However, the lesson learned was not to attempt a century ride that has the word “challenge” in it or at least to figure out how flat the ride is before starting.
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