Ride report - the Dragon Ride (long)

The Dragon Ride

In response to Arthur's request for more ride reports, here's mine for the
Dragon Ride. Sorry if it's too long! I don't know if anyone else here did
it? It's been very thoroughly discussed and disected on the C+ forum, and I
am a bit surprised it hasn't come up here.

Anyway, FWIW - the Dragon Ride took place last weekend, over a choice of 100
or 150k routes in South Wales heading up into the Brecon Beacons. The 150k
route covers two UK cat 1 climbs, the Rhigos and the Blywch, and one Hors
Cat. climb near Ystradfellte. Despite sounding impressive, actually although
the scenery is quite impressive the climbs were not that difficult - given
low enough gears which I made sure to fit . About 750 riders had entered,
making it probably one of the largest, if not the largest, 'cyclosportive'
type event in the UK (although I stand to be corrected if I'm wrong).
Transponder timing chips were provided for a small fee, adding a further
degree of competitive interest to the event.

The ride got underway under slightly cloudy skies at 9.30 on Sunday morning
with the first group of 50 riders. We were sent away in groups of
approximately 50 every couple of minutes so being mid-field my ride didn't
start until about 9.45, at the tail end of my group. I had done the Polka
Dot, very slightly longer and hillier, so I didn't have any qualms about
getting round, I just wanted to better my Polka Dot time. So I decided I
would not start conservatively, and as one of a group of club riders in
front of me said to the others 'ok, let's go', I thought to myself, 'right,
I'm going with you'. So as they upped their pace I followed and we were soon
leaving my start group in our wake and skipping ahead towards other groups
that had started earlier. As we went further down the road various riders
from the other groups joined and left the paceline, and somewhere along the
way I even managed to leave my initial 'ride partners' behind. The South
Wales police kindly provided a motor cycle rider who kept overtaking us and
stopping traffic as large groups of cyclists made their way around
roundabouts on the A48 - it was great fun being part of a peloton racing
through the give way signs being given priority over other traffic.

There was a slight climb up in to Neath which, on OS maps, has a chevron on
it - normally seeing any road with one of those on it makes me rather
worried - but somehow it went past rapidly as hardly more than a blip which
required a quick down change through the gears for a minute or two, then
straight back up through them as the road levelled off, and we sped on
towards Glyn Neath at a pace that, for me, was unaccustomedly fast and
furious - we were doing evens for the first 40 miles or so. Then came a feed
station where we all stopped to grab bananas and water, and unfortunately
'my' group of about 20 riders then disintegrated as we each seemed to set
off individually.

Wanting to press on, I rode off alone towards the split for the 100/150k
routes, expecting at any moment that a new group would come up on my wheel
and I would latch on to them, but after the split the road started going up
slightly and somehow it didn't happen for quite a bit longer than I
expected, in fact I began overtaking other individual riders. Eventually I
did join with another group, who started riding through and off to maintain
a good pace against a slight headwind. When it was my turn in front, I was
relieved to find that we were just beginning a descent, so I thought 'that's
good, I can do my bit to keep the pace up without making too much effort',
but thinking it wouldn't be right to just coast at the same pace I pushed
the pace up a bit to take advantage of the downhill. I cranked on as it
levelled off and eventually, after a few km, looked behind for someone else
to come through but there wasn't anyone! I was alone again! Was I impolite
to push the pace on a descent, I wondered? Eventually another cyclist from
the group did catch me and said 'I don't know what you had for breakfast but
I want some!' I felt it was a nice compliment, but not entirely appropriate
since he was then about to overtake me! Perhaps I should have had some of
what he had! I stayed on his wheel for a bit and in fact we repassed and
took tows off each other for most of the rest of the ride, at times being
part of a larger group and at times being alone.

100km came and went easily in about 3h15, a new PB for me, and it seemed we
had still yet to see any real climbs! It wasn't long after that they started
though. That it took me 3h15 for the first 100k and 2h15 for the final 50k
says a lot about the hillyness of the last 50k! I completed the ride in
just over 5h30, which I felt was not bad, placing me provisionally 32nd out
of over 220 riders on the 150k who were 'chipped', and taking an hour off my
Polka Dot time - much of that due, I think, to being able to work with
fast-paced groups early on in the ride, which I never managed to do on the
Polka Dot - I went round most of that alone.

All in all great fun, and highly recommended. Now for l'etape!

Rich