It was a reasonably early start, I got up at 7:30 sorted myself and the bike out and set of at 8:25 to the Bath Road car park for the 9am kick-off.
(Thank's Paul W for the Photo, from left to right me, Simon W, Richard-'what hill' Buckley, Andy 'im doing fixed' and Dylan S)
We set off at 9, I of course had to be in front! There was a method in my madness, the first climb of the day was the steepest (1:6 Wick Hill) if I got there first I could climb it at my pace and the rest of the Wheelers leading pack would catch up and we could ride on together :-) It worked well :-)
The pace was stonking we were averaging about 19mph, unfortunately we were going too quickly, the first checkpoint at Brinkworth wasn't supposed to open until 10:10, we got there at about 10...
(The Flapjack was great :-)
We were forced to stop, I had my first slice of flapjack of the day and a nice cup of tea :-)
I set off from Brinkworth as part of the lead group but was quickly dropped on the climbs, I almost caught back up at Minety but had to stop at a junction to give way.
It was a very pleasant ride, some of the single track lanes were in fantastic condition, I arrived at the Kemble control a few minutes behind the lead group, and had a fantastic plate of baked beans on toast.
I set of from Kemble with the rest of the guys, and plodded along at my own pace, it appeared that I was the only one that knew the route :-) so I was setting the pace :-)
Some of the roads were absolutely atrocious, dirty and pot holed, but they were nice and quiet :-)
When we got to Sherston we had to stop and find the control!!! I had yet another slice of Flapjack :-)
I set of from Sherston with the lead group and navigated them to Castle Coombe, by which point they knew where they were going, so I let them race on ahead whilst I climbed the hill out of Castle Combe at my own happy pace :-)
I saw the flash of there white tops to the left as I followed the route and they deviated via Giddeahall :-) I ended up getting to the final control a few moments behind them.
At the last control I had my last slice of Flapjack and a cup of tea:-)
It was a fantastic ride, the weather was perfect...some of the roads were 'interesting' - but in many ways that made the ride even more memorable. I think it may be the first ride I have done where I have consumed more calories than I have used!
The Garmin had the ride as 66.27 miles in 4 hours 4 minutes with an average speed of 16.3 mph, route here...
Again Thanks to Paul W for the photies :-)
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