2008 Gran Fondo Cymru

Only manged to complete the medium route in an official time of 6:24:41 (bronze).

We met Kiwis Hamish and Richard at dinner in Bala the night before. They were up from London together with the Reid and MacGregor families and were also making a weekend of it. We started together but they were last seen heading back towards Betwys-y-coed with a support motorbike when Hamish broke a spoke. We never exchanged numbers but they have also entered the Circuit of the Cotswolds so hopefully we’ll catch up again there.

My GPS says I rode 143 km with 2,200 m elevation.

The event’s site says the route was 146 km with 2,760 m while the route plotted on an Ordnance Survey map in TrackLogs says it was 142 km with 2,970 m.

By the time I hit the bail out point I thought I had only completed 2,100 m of the full route’s advertised 3,900 m of climbing and had the rest to cram into the remaining 70 km.

It wasn’t a hard choice to then cut my losses and head straight on to Bala.

If I had known that I had in fact only around 1,000 m left I might just have convinced myself to tough out the rain and gale force headwind and complete the full 200 km course.

There’s always next year.

The scenery in North Wales was stunning and the highlight of the ride was the fast 8 km descent from Nebo to Llanwrst. The toughest part was the gale force headwind during the 19 km climb up the Ranges from Maentwrog.

The scariest part was the wet and slippery 10 km decent from the Ranges into Llanuwchylln. The freezing rain that felt like pins being driven into my face did its best to distract me as I was trying to keep my bike under control on the narrow track.

The feed stations were well stocked but I stuck to water and bananas. There was lots of Red Bull plus one even had a barbecue. I was a little early for lunch but was almost tempted to stick around for a cup of tea or coffee.

My plan to not hang around in feed stations worked as faster groups would often overtake me twice, once before the feed station and then again after because they had hung around chatting.

Four weeks to now prepare for the Circuit of the Cotswolds.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 05/25/2008
• Time: 07:00:00
• Total Time: 6:09:57.00
• Average Heart rate: 148
• Calories: 6561
• Distance: 142.46 km
• Average Speed: 23.1 kmph
• Ascent: 2,197 m
• Average Cadence: 78