BikeWales South Report - Abergavenny 20/8/2006

[huw williams]

Just a brief one as my hands are periodically cramping up and my backside hurts too much to be able to sit down long enough to write a full report.

It was that hard.

The more of these you do, the more familiar you are with the tactics, the faster you try and go. Consequently as you get fitter you just try harder and harder so it never, ever gets easier.

These days I try and survive with the lead group until the hills start where its every man for himself. Unfortunately on this one there was 26.5 miles until the hills started and the lead group contained Julian Wynne (erstwhile national RR champ) and a load of his elite mates trying to turn him over for local bragging rites.

We reached the first proper climb in exactly one hour after 26.5miles over rolling countryside, which was as hard as I've ridden for a while. Long draggy inclines had me on my max more than once just trying to stay in with the fast boys. When the hills appeared at Rockfield the pros took no notice and carried on as if they were still on the flat, shattering a hardworking group of about 50 riders into fragments.

After 20 miles of hanging onto the coat-tails of anything climbing at a similar speed to me we hit "The Tumble" - the half way point and a climb worthy of its fearsome reputation. Steep lower slopes under the trees lead to exposed open moorland on the higher slopes. It's three miles long and its murder. It also marks the start of a series of long draggy climbs on exposed roads.

That split things up even more and I found myself alone for the next 30 miles of torture into the cold drizzle and headwind accross the Brynmawr wastelands and the endless uphill drags to llangynidr and the 75mile feedstation at Langors Lake. I saw no-one ahead or behind for about an hour and a half. And there were another 400 riders out there somewhere.

I went through the feed and there were still no other riders in sight as I headed out to the last climb of Talgarth. Half way up I picked up a few riders shelled out of the lead group who were struggling and two guys came up from behind to join us. A right turn at the top marked the start of a 14-mile downhill run-in and the switch of direction provided a tail-wind (14 miles downhill? With a tail-wind? Heaven) you can guess what happened - a 4-man through and off which was pretty close to 30mph most of the way back into Abergavenny.

5hrs 24mins for bang on 100 miles - I was more than happy with that as there were some severe climbs and the gruelling middle section of solo riding was a painfully slow slog. There weren't too many riders at the finish when I got back so I'm hopefull of a good result.

For the record this is one of the best series of sportives in the country. Bikewales is organised by the events group, who for years organised the Tour of Britain and pro city centre crit series. Consequently there were great facilities, good trade sponsors lead-cars, motorcycle escorts, marshalls and feed stations of the highest standard.

There are two more BikeWales events this year, check out the website for details

http://www.theeventsgroup.net/bikewales/bwindex.html

[Brian Nolan]

Well done Huw - that sounds like quite a ride - with a great finishing time..
Amost makes the Highclere ride seem like a walk in the park..

[Brian Nolan]

yeah - poor thing . I felt a bit bad about that. Dick Dastardly would have been proud of me....

[huw williams]

Results are posted

438 finishers in all with 158 finishing the 100mile 'Gold' ride - I was 32nd in 5:28:09