St Ives CC 100 mile challenge in support of Road Peace

Quite a few St Neots CC members joined our neighbours from St Ives CC who had organised a 100 mile challenge in support of Road Peace. We seem to be sharing more rides recently, with the recentSNCC Philippines Typhoon charity ride well supported by SICC members. This time it was our turn to return the compliment. Below is a report from SICC by Richard Neil and a perspective from our Gary Newman of the ride.

SICC Club Run Report – Sunday 16th March 2014 – 100 mile Challenge: Marston Vale

36 riders signed on for an 8AM start to our annual 100 mile challenge ride, in aid of Road Peace, a charity for victims of road accidents. For reasons I can’t recall (possibly weather related) we did not do a Club charity ride in 2013, but some of us did ride this route on 7th April last year, so it’s not totally new, but not an area of the countryside we usually get out to.

After an early coffee (or breakfast!) at the ‘Local Café, 4 groups departed at approx. 2 min. intervals – as seems usual these days the ‘A’ group (last out of the blocks on this occasion) was larger than ideal, but seemingly nobody wanted to join the preceding ‘B’ groups that were a far more manageable size. St. Ives members were joined by riders from St. Neots CC, and I think groups managed to mingle fairly well.

I rode with the A group, at least as far as the RH turn onto the B1090 after the climb out of St. Ives. Andy Wylde pulled over to investigate a ‘clonking’ from his bike. After a few minutes of checking the bike over, he discovered the frame had snapped at the RH drop out for the rear wheel! Game over for Andy? Not a bit of it – he said he would ride back to his car in St. Ives, drive home, get another bike & meet us further on the route. I thought that would be the last we saw of him for the day – I was wrong!

The 4 of us who had stopped with Andy to ‘support’ him whilst the rest of the A group rode off into the distance then faced the daunting prospect of trying to get back up to the (still large) A group, into a brisk headwind. As we began to go ‘through & off’ to share the load, I recall thinking, “Jack, Phil, Chris & me – who’s the weak link here? It’s ME!” With encouragement & some sheltering I managed to hang on, but 20 or so miles later never have I been so relieved to see a group of sweaty men in Lycra by the side of the road – the A group watching Andy unload his replacement bike from his support car – what superb service from Team Wylde!

Back in the safety of the reformed A group I was able to start enjoying the ride! Apart from a puncture, nothing further to report on the way out to the stop (I won’t mention the couple of very minor wrong turns!). Arriving at Marston Vale Millennium Park Café, we were able to get outside in the sunshine, tucked away in a corner out of the by now quite strong wind.

Hitting the road for the return leg, there is a rather short but nasty climb (just before the A6 I think) – the condition of the road surface is terrible which makes the climb difficult. But after that we were soon back onto familiar territory, and possibly because of this, after Old Warden our group split, some wanting to press on, others happy to keep a steady pace. The resulting groups being smaller made things much more manageable – communication being much easier for one thing.

Our small group arrived back in St. Ives C. 14:30, tired but very happy.

Thanks to Mark Roberts for putting the route together – very interesting & good to visit parts we don’t often get out to.

For the record, we (you!) raised £210 for Road Peace – which is a fantastic effort and I’d like to say a big THANK YOU for your support.

In particular I’d like to thank St Neots CC members who joined us with a great turn out– it was really good to ride with you guys, a big THANK YOU for your support. I hope you enjoyed it & hopefully we will can make this a regular event in the calendar.

I hope you had a good ride if you managed to get out. As ever, I'd like to hear how it went for you. Hope to see you on the road soon.

Best wishes.
Richard

The ride as experienced by Gary Newman

It was an early start, well it was for me, although for some it was probably considered a lie-in (I’m looking at you Mark Greenhow). Today was a departure from the normal Sunday routine as we set off to repay the favour to St Ives CC for their participation in our Philippine charity ride late last year. The forecast was warm for the time of year and sunny but windy.

The loose plan that had formed was to meet at the St Ivo recreation centre for 7:30 and then pootle down into town ready for the off at 8:00. There were about 8 of us here and we joined up with a further contingent of St Neots riders at an already very busy café and just before the depart Johnathon and his Philippine chapter arrived to swell our numbers even further.

Groups were sorted with the medium pace groups going out first leaving a rather large number of riders for a fast group who seemed reluctant to split into two groups at this stage so we departed westwards with over 20 to our number.

The first 50 miles were set to be into the wind and we soon organised into rotating the group with changes at the front every minute, that meant a reasonable pace was maintained which allowed for plenty of recovery time. This was especially welcome given some of the gusts on the exposed Fen roads up towards Sawtry. We also swapped between clockwise and counter-clockwise rotation dependent upon the direction of the crosswind.

There must have been something in the coffee with the first comfort break taken only a few miles into the ride and a second “unofficial” stop was not far behind as Alan from St. Ives who broke his bike very early in the ride re-joined us with a replacement bike just as we turned off the B645. I then punc***d for the second time in two rides that allowed for a further stop. After that the first half of the ride zipped along as we continued onto the café stop at Marston Mortaine Country Park.

Personally I’m not a fan of the mid ride stop as the legs tend to stiffen and I can’t stand queuing. It was an opportunity to inspect the handiwork of my puncture repair, which revealed my tube was poking out of a split in the tyre on the front. Time to change the tyres I think. The medium group despite dealing with a major mechanical that ended Terry’s day soon joined us swelling the queue further.

After about 30 minutes we were off with some heavy legs, negotiating the climb out past Millbrook, but we had the comfort of knowing the remainder of the ride would come courtesy of a very nice tailwind. There was a bit of leg stretching as we went up Maggot Hill just before we crossed the A6 and onto Chicksands, which was very busy with mountain bikers.

The group was briefly split by a car as we headed to Old Warden and the decision was made to split the group into two with those of us towards the front upping the pace, whilst the remainder maintained theirs. This resulted in a front group of 7 as we bombed down towards Cardington and from here we moved to constant rotation.

Everton Hill was the last opportunity to open up the legs and we were all doffing our caps to the current St. Ives hill climb champion, Jack Burgin who made it look easy. The KOM currently held by Joe F remained untroubled.

At the end I think everyone was more than content not to sprint for the finish and we arrived back at the café we had left 6 and a half hours earlier. The second half of the fast group was pretty hot on our heels and rolled in about 5 minutes after we’d finished.

It was an enjoyable day and it was nice to see a good representation from the club and on the couple of times I’ve ridden with St Ives I have always been impressed with their ride efficiency and discipline.