Review: Denmead Audax...
Stats: 111.7km. 4:50:48. 23.0kph. 1,440m ascent.
Prior to Saturday, my longest stint on the bike had been 75km (47miles) completed back in November – in the ‘honeymoon period’ just after I got my new bike – so I always new that this 110km (69 mile) Audax was going to offer me challenges-a-plenty.
The weather forecast of light rain prompted an emergency purchase of some SKS race blades (aka mudguards), however, it appears that luck was on our side as Saturday defied the Met Office and turned into a crisp winter morning.
After a mug of tea and a jaffa cake at Denmead community centre, I booted up the three onboard computers on my steed and we were off. I had preplanned a ‘breadcrumb trail’ of the route into my Garmin Edge GPS that I intended to follow – allowing me to focus on the cycling and not to worry about the navigating – however, just 100 metres into the 110km ride it was necessary to pull over. The Edge decided to freeze and no amount of resetting was able to fix the problem. I had back up in the form of my old Garmin Etrex, that was until 20 minutes later when the batteries died!! Fortunately there still was the ‘old fashioned’ route map & directions and that is what we followed from there...
There were about 70 riders undertaking the audax, which meant there were little opportunities to latch onto a group so the distance was tackled without much chance to practice drafting & group riding. This is a skill that I need to learn – as when it comes to the longer & tougher sportives it is crucial to work together – drafting can be used to conserve between 25%-40% of energy which can be make-or-break on a ten hour ride using 800 KCal / hour.
We spun back into the community centre some 5+ hours after leaving Denmead but feeling pretty pleased with what we had accomplished. The ‘ride’ time was 4hrs 50mins – excluding the cafe stop at the half-way control and the puncture that I encountered with just 3 miles to go (!), with the average speed a steady 23kph. By March/April 100km will be a regular Saturday training ride, but for now completion of my first metric century feels like an achievement. To put this into a bit of perspective come July the task will be 196km, climbing 5 mountain passes in ten hours, however, I feel that I have taken the next step towards completing this goal.
And finally, a few things I have learnt for the future:
* Ensure that I have sufficient nutrition for the event. I was starting to feel a little weary with 25k to go and an energy gel with gave me a welcome boost.
* Flapjacks are far tastier than Powerbars.
* Don’t rely on technology !!
Prior to Saturday, my longest stint on the bike had been 75km (47miles) completed back in November – in the ‘honeymoon period’ just after I got my new bike – so I always new that this 110km (69 mile) Audax was going to offer me challenges-a-plenty.
The weather forecast of light rain prompted an emergency purchase of some SKS race blades (aka mudguards), however, it appears that luck was on our side as Saturday defied the Met Office and turned into a crisp winter morning.
After a mug of tea and a jaffa cake at Denmead community centre, I booted up the three onboard computers on my steed and we were off. I had preplanned a ‘breadcrumb trail’ of the route into my Garmin Edge GPS that I intended to follow – allowing me to focus on the cycling and not to worry about the navigating – however, just 100 metres into the 110km ride it was necessary to pull over. The Edge decided to freeze and no amount of resetting was able to fix the problem. I had back up in the form of my old Garmin Etrex, that was until 20 minutes later when the batteries died!! Fortunately there still was the ‘old fashioned’ route map & directions and that is what we followed from there...
There were about 70 riders undertaking the audax, which meant there were little opportunities to latch onto a group so the distance was tackled without much chance to practice drafting & group riding. This is a skill that I need to learn – as when it comes to the longer & tougher sportives it is crucial to work together – drafting can be used to conserve between 25%-40% of energy which can be make-or-break on a ten hour ride using 800 KCal / hour.
We spun back into the community centre some 5+ hours after leaving Denmead but feeling pretty pleased with what we had accomplished. The ‘ride’ time was 4hrs 50mins – excluding the cafe stop at the half-way control and the puncture that I encountered with just 3 miles to go (!), with the average speed a steady 23kph. By March/April 100km will be a regular Saturday training ride, but for now completion of my first metric century feels like an achievement. To put this into a bit of perspective come July the task will be 196km, climbing 5 mountain passes in ten hours, however, I feel that I have taken the next step towards completing this goal.
And finally, a few things I have learnt for the future:
* Ensure that I have sufficient nutrition for the event. I was starting to feel a little weary with 25k to go and an energy gel with gave me a welcome boost.
* Flapjacks are far tastier than Powerbars.
* Don’t rely on technology !!
Posted by Richard Allen
1 Comments:
Anybody who knows Rich's love of technology (which is everyone who knows Rich) will be able to picture the look of disappointment on his face when the entire 'flight deck' of his GPS instruments failed early in the day. :)
I'm looking forward to seeing what additional back-up systems have been incorporated into the set-up for the next race...
Still, you can't argue with the effort required to cycle 133km this early in the year.
Good work.
Magnus
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