Rides on 11th April

Tim, Paul and Mike went out for 8.5 hours on Saturday doing the usual course but hill repeating at any hill over 50m except for Bison that we did once.

We also spent quite a bit of time at Aldbury where Mike and I did hill repeats as Tim mendede his puncture and discovered "Brother of Bison" a 1km 7% hill that's good training.

Overall we managed 2,700 metres of climbing which is about 82% of the etape and although most of what we did is not as steep as in the etape and it was clear that the asdcents make the whole ride much much harder.

I found the attached map of tourmalet on a blogsite that puts our climbs into perspective in that seemingly the last 11km of tourmalet climb is all at 9-10% which is steeper than anything we do apart from Bison. Gulp! {Paul write-up}

Simon had a different start point, from the nouveau riche settings of the Grove. I had to get back by 1200 on the Saturday to avoid being charged another day (which would have been an expensive mistake) and after a late start due to a mysterious overnight puncture having left my bike in my car, we only did 45 miles. However, the good news was the months of training are starting to pay off. Those who came out just after Xmas, may remember by colleague, Jeremy, the national standard mountain bike. He whipped me up all of the hills an left me for dead after 30 miles. This time did feel different, I might claim I beat him in the sprint finish and up the last climb, although that was my only victory of the day and he will possibly and reasonably claim, he was not trying at these points. The point was that I did not feel off his pace and I think he had to actually try to make sure he beat me. The other colleague who (who commutes on his bike, but has not done any training this year) was left trailing some distance behind and he was 30 mins faster than me in the Sportive last year. This all made me feel reasonably positive, particularly as my knee was giving me some pain.