As Kim was supposed to attend a marshals briefing in Tenby on Friday evening, we decided we might as well go and watch the swim and I could register for the Saturday ride. As always, there is just one more thing you need for your bike and so we found ourselves in Tenby Cycles buying a bag for the top tube to keep all my Geobars in. Jon was in good form as ever and gave me a promotional High5 sample box he had that was full of energy enhancing goodies.
The swim was a bit of a farce as the strong rip tide took all but the strongest swimmers off to Caldey Island and only a very few made the 1 hour cut off time allowed for the second lap. Eventually most made it to shore at the very end of South Beach and jogged back along the sand. There were a lot of very pissed off Long Course Weekend competitors who’s weekend was ruined at the first hurdle.
On the way back I started my careful preparation for the ride with a bag of chips. Then, while Kim cooked a large bowl of pasta, I fitted the timing chip and numbers to the bike and read the booklet that came with the High5 selection box. It promised significant improvement by following their regime of energy drinks and gels…..
We left the house at 6am on Saturday morning to meet up with Carlton and Shaun who were aiming for a similar 15mph average speed that I set myself after my recce ride the week before. In keeping with the High5 performance plan, the normal Weetabix was forsaken for an Energy Source Extreme with 30g of caffeine.
We all assembled at the Salterns Car Park for a 7pm start. Glancing around there was some very tasty kit and some serious looking dudes complete with aero helmets. I was beginning to worry I might just make a complete tit of myself…
In my haste to leave the house I forgot the strap for my HRM which I was planning to use religiously to ensure that I did not go off too fast. Anyway straight from the off we all got separated and I think the caffeine kicked in as I shot off up the road just to prove I could keep up with at least a few of the big boys (and girls). Mike Smith must have had the same for breakfast we both found ourselves heading for together Pembroke at high speed.
The first ‘test’ was St Daniel’s Hill where I found that the majority of these super athletes weren’t that quick up the hill and managed to get past quite a few of them (that tells you either they were very slow, or the power of caffeine). The funniest sight was a guy on a full works time trial bike, disk wheels, aero helmet etc. out of the saddle desperately rocking from side to side trying to get up the hill. He was in for a very nasty shock as the day wore on.
Once up St. Daniels Hill it was a fast pace to Freshwater West with the wind slightly behind. Jon was at the top of Fresh West hill snapping away giving words of encouragement. There must have been 20 – 30 photographers on the event jumping out from hedges and it was very hard work trying to look ones best the whole way round.
I caught up with Sean on the climb out of Angle and we rode in a group to the first feed station at the top of the Ridgeway. By this time it was getting rather warm and I had drunk both bottles. I tried a Geobar and it made me gag so it was onto the gel sachets. If it is good enough for Dylan…
Due to an incident on Providence Hill (a murder it transpired) there was a diversion put in place from Molleston down past the Grove to Narberth Bridge. This cut out the drag out of Templeton for which I was very grateful. Local knowledge proved to be an asset as I knew to brake at the bottom of the hill and change down for the short steep hill up to the golf course. Others weren’t so acquainted with the road and a few went off at the corner and others, having made the corner, fell off on the hill as they were in the wrong gear.
I was then looking forward to the adulation of the crowds lining the streets of Narberth as a local boy came through sporting Club colours. I was met by complete indifference and a lot of tutting as I weaved in and out of a load of frankly clinically obese grockles with their equally obese children and ridiculous dogs wheezing their way from one pavement to the other. I really do think the M50 and M4 have a lot to answer for. Still I bet Andrew sold a lot of pies on Saturday and Roger will never be out of a job. Anyway, enough of my sizest remarks and on with the cycling.
Starting our club rides from Narberth, you never really appreciate quite what a long drag it is up to Princes Gate. Still, the high point of the ride (literally and figuratively) was at the turning off the Taverspite Road where Kim was marshalling and it was all downhill to Wiseman’s Bridge. Again, the hill out of Wiseman’s Bridge after some 65miles cycling in the sun is a different proposition to a club ride. Even on the first lap there were people getting of and walking. St Brides Hill followed and then back to Tenby for the second pit stop. Trouble was, by the time I got there, probably mid-field, there was nothing left but water much to many people’s annoyance. Luckily I was still well stocked with lots of gel with and without caffeine!
By this time I seemed to have got myself into a group of one, the battery on my phone has been exhausted by the GPS that was about as much use as a chocolate spanner telling me once again that was I either stopped or travelling at about 120mph. Even worse no background soundtrack to distract me from the nagging thought that I was completely knackered.
The sports drink I got at the first drinks station tasted like cough medicine and every time I bit into a gel sachet it seemed to spray all over me. However, I had worked out by now how long it took for the gel to kick in and for how long that euphoric sense of well being would last (a bit like KERS?). I was therefore forcing the drink and sachets down in dread of the hills to come. I think I hit my lowest ebb on the drag from Carew to Crosshands the second time, the wind was right in your face and the road just seemed to undulate on for ever. I also got cramp in my right foot and decided to take a break at the top of the hill down past the Grove for some self applied massage. Just to add insult to injury I managed to sit on a nettle, swapping one burning sensation for another.
One I got through Narberth for the second time and had stopped for a refill of gel and water at Kim’s marshalling post, I convinced myself I would make it and close to my target time of 7:30.
Wiseman’s Bridge for the second time was hilarious (in a delirious sort of way). People were walking up it two abreast and a girl in front of me asked if one of those walking could catch her. I was out of the saddle going slightly faster than the pedestrians when I heard a cry from behind ‘get out the f**king way, coming through’ as Carton shot past me tailing another Ace up the hill.
The last bit of St Brides Hill up to the roundabout was absolute torture but then there was a nice fast decent to Tenby and onto the finish in the square. Barriers out, waving crowds, this was more like it I thought as I sprinted toward what I though was the finish. It transpired that the waving was to try and slow me down as you have to negotiate a hairpin bend at the bottom of the square and then go back up to the finish. I just made it round to cross the line at a more sedentary pace with my bike computer showing exactly 15mph average. Job done.
In hindsight I enjoyed the ride and it was particularly gratifying to see lots of those flash bikes I saw at the start finishing well behind me. As Mike Smith (or was it Lance Armstrong?) said as we were debating this very issue at the finish, ‘it’s not about the bike’.
As a postscript, I think we need to consider an ‘away strip’ for the summer months as a black jersey on a hot summers day is probably not ideal!
Fantastic weather – feed stations were well stocked with … water ran out of bananas 
– I thought I rode OK (but 138 out 269 rode faster than me)
. I was slightly less than ‘average’ (I can live with that!)and faster than 99 which, compared to where I was in March, shows some improvement!
