Tour of Cambridgeshire Gran Fondo Race 7 June

[Paul H]

Team Addiscombe participated in England’s first Gran Fondo along with 5000 other riders. Unlike a sportive, this was a Race with a finish order, prizes and everybody starting together.

Anticipating chaos, I pushed in as far up front as I could while Steve, Matt, Dave, Jonathan & Rogan elected to start a bit farther back.

From the gun, the pace was brutal with everybody trying to get to the front. There were plenty of hairy moments and I was on the limit with my HR regularly hitting the 180s which my diesel engine doesn’t like these days. After about 30 mins it started splitting up and I managed to keep in the first group along with approx. 200 others. The rest of Team ACC starting that little further back resulted in them not making the cut. The pace didn’t drop much and I went through 50 miles in 1:53. It was all about survival and riders were regularly getting dropped. I got caught out at the back a few times and had to chase back on after riders in front of me blew and left gaps.

Deciding not to compete in the sprint, I trundled over the line at the back of the pack in 118th place. The rest of the Team arrived a few minutes later.

With the groups being so large, it was inevitable that somebody was going to become a cropper and Rogan got caught up in a crash resulting in a black eye and a stinging nettle bath.

Not sure I enjoyed it but it was certainly an experience I won’t forget.

118 Paul Hone 3:11:40
160 Jonathan Pontin 3:21:16
231 Steve Broomfield 3:22:39
269 Matt Halvatzis 3:22:49
296 Dave Edwards 3:29:02

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMDJew0YBTk[/url]

[[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNlp9BiQOnM[/url]

[Jonathan]

As Paul said I started a bit further back (probably about 700th), set off as hard as I could to try to make the first group. Managed to hitch onto the back of a Hackney CC train for a couple of miles then started moving through on my own. Got to the 2nd group on the road after maybe 5-10 miles with an average HR of 185, tried to bridge but didn't quite have the gass.

After a brief attempt at a 2-up with steve to bridge across we settled into the 2nd group which was about 100 or so strong. Lots of attempts to get through-and-off going but it was beyond most of the people in the group attempted a couple of attacked off the front but got pulled back both times, the wind making it very hard work for small groups. A crash about 40 miles in (straight roads and no potholes so not sure what was happening there) split us into a group of about 40-60 riders which made it a much more manageable group, and we stayed like that until the finish. Didn't contest the sprint, was quite a hairy finish with a roundabout and two sharp turns within the last 500m.

Like Paul wouldn't do it again, it was an experience and am sure it was a great sportive but as a race it was frustrating and badly run