Roses Round

A rubbish week exercise-wise this week - too much work, too much travelling and the one night (Tuesday) I was going to get out I'd forgotten my shoes.  I did, however, play golf on Thursday and came second.  Clever old me (well, shitty everyone else, as I didn't exactly burn it up out there).

Anyway, today, Herb and I toed (or more accurately "wheeled") the line at the Roses Round sportive at Tosside.  We've done this before, including a prety speedy time (even though I say so myself) a couple of years ago.  However today we had a newbie roadie, Dave, with us, so it was going to be a case of nursing him round, at least for part of the way.

The route starts with a hooning downhill and some fast roads to Slaidburn, then a right turn sees the work start at about 5 miles in.  This is the start of the climb over towards Bentham, but there's a couple of hills beforehand before the real meaty bit starts.  We waited for Dave before the drop down to the main climb, and were rewarded with some great views in the sunshine.

Looking over towards Pen y Ghent before the Cross 'o Greet climb

Dave collected, we spun down to the start of the ascent, which is one of those that lets you see what's coming all the way from the bottom.  Dave was finding his own pace, but we were passed by a couple of guys in full Hope gear at the bottom and Herb's competitive instincts kicked in.  As it happens they weren't exactly flying, so we just enjoyed a bit of banter on the way up.  The wind seemed to be behind, so the climb was at its most benign, and we crested the top in about 12 minutes, a pretty respectable time.

On the descent from Cross o' Greet, Howgills (?) in the distance

We waited for Dave, who made pretty good time, then cracked on to the first feedstop at Settle.  When I've done this event before I was quite disappointed as whilst they filled your bottles, food was extra - so I was very impressed to see butties, cake, biscuits and malt loaf laid out for us to trough.

We agreed with Dave that we'd stick together to Grassington at about 50 miles, then Herb and I would press on.  K was at a rounders tournament and she would have, I assumed, two very bored girls with her waiting to be taken home to sit open mouthed in front of the telly (which seems more boring to me that running around with your mates, but hey ho).  Maisie is of course recovering from her first proper bike crash when she had a "racing incident" with her mate and had to pay a visit to A&E to have a cut sorted out - so she seems to feel that telly/Wii sitting is very much the order of the day.

Anyway - we regrouped at Stainforth for the second big climb, and Herb and I both found it relatively easy - Dave was starting to feel it a bit, so we agreed to try and stick together, especially down Littondale which threatened to be into the wind.

Dave at the top of the Pen y Ghent climb - the last photo opportunity before the rain!

 We managed to keep Dave with us down Littondale, which probably cost us a bit of time but will have made his life a lot easier, as the breeze was by now quite stiff, with the sky getting darker.  More tea and cake at Grassington (this was now becoming an excellent value event - Herb probably ate his entry fee in flapjack) when we bid Dave goodbye and headed off into the gloom and, by now, rain.  Herb engaged in his usual sartorial debate wondering whether it was pertex, gilet or nothing.  In the end he elected for arm warmers and gilet and we were off.

On my fast ride I did the last 25 miles or so in 1:35, so we were hoping we could get somewhere close to that.  The rain was hammering down now though, and we were getting cold and very wet.  After Airton we started counting down from 20 miles, and pretty soon we were through Hellifield and onto the climb over to Bolton-by-Bowland - and within 10m of the finish.

The last 5m is tough (particularly as we were now drenched), as it's 3 miles of gentle uphill followed by a couple of miles of much steeper ascent.  Herb had the bit between his teeth though and as we finally had some people to chase we really pressed on - big ring, heads down, HR bouncing up to levels I'd expect to see running.

We finished with a moving time of just over 5 hrs, half an hour or so slower than my "fast" ride in 2009, but I think we probably used up most of that in the bits where we were helping Dave, particularly down Littondale where you can normally really crack on. 

Both of us were pretty chuffed with how it'd gone, as we've agreed to ride from Bingley to Sunderland then up to Gosforth on a charity "bike to work" day, which will see us hanging onto Thackray for grim death for about 120 miles.

It'll be nice to do something altruistic for a change - over the last week I've been pretty humbled by this young lady's blog - she's 15, she's from Ulverston where K and I are from, and she's dying from cancer.  She's created a "bucket list" of things to do before she "kicks the bucket", and this week it "went viral" on Twitter.  Lots of people were asking her how they could contribute to help her do the things she wants to do - but she's asked that people sponsor her sister, Milly, who's doing the Race for Life - and today pledges went through £30,000!!  This is fantastic, and a far better use of blog time than the usual self-absorbed "look at me" shite you usually see posted (present blog very much included).  If any of the few people who do read this haven't come across Alice and Milly then have a look - and if any of you have but haven't contributed, then get your hands in your pockets!