Archer GP Sportive
August 5, 2007 in Cycle, Event, Uncategorized
Digg! this story.
by Adrian Fitch
Our first decent weekend of sun coincided with the running of the first Archer Grand Prix Chiltern Classic Sportive.
The route was quite tough and took in many of the hills used over the past 52 years in the actual Archer Grand Prix race.
Bikely lists the total climbing over the route at 1,616 metres but my GPS and Tracklogs put it at around 2,400.
Either way, it was very tough plus our two ascents of the one in seven Whiteleaf Hill were timed so we could compare them to this year’s race winner Simon Gaywood.
He did it in 4:29 in the wet but I’ll be lucky to come in at under 9:00 when the times are put on the event’s site later this week.
A couple of the picturesque villages we went through were holding cricket matches on their green which seemed like a much more civilised way to spend a Sunday in the country.
I’ve put a few more equally low quality shots from my mobile on Flickr here.
UPDATE [Aug 9]
Official time including stops of 6:58:47 with 7:40 for my climb up Whiteleaf Hill.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 08/05/2007
- Time: 08:30:00
- Total Time: 6:31:10.00
- Distance: 157.85 km
- Average Speed: 24.21 kmph
- Max Speed: 66.2 kmph
- Ascent: 2,400 m
4 comments
August 6, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Brad Hefta-Gaub
Adrian, what software produced your cool elevation chart? Is that from Bikely?
August 7, 2007 at 5:49 am
Adrian Fitch
It is from Bikely — click on the Show menu option up on the left.
I find it routinely under-reports the total elevation gain but it gets the shape right so is perfectly good for planning.
August 7, 2007 at 6:41 am
riddenwords
It’s very hard to know what to trust on the total elevation thing. If your GPS has barametric pressure, that’s probably the thing to trust. I keep trying MapMyRide but I can draw a course twice and get a variance of 300-500 ft difference and it generally draws hills that aren’t there on the course.
That’s a good amount of climbing in any case. An no youths throwing anything but Cricket balls (are they balls or is there some unique name for them? I guess they’re technically “bowling” them, not throwing them…)
August 7, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Neil Jakulis
Absolute hell!!! From start to finish, my legs screamed at me. I did 5h 40m, which wasn’t great given the distance… but looking at your route profile and the heat of the day … anything under 10 hours was credible.
Never doing that one again. Nice pics though.