Controls: Oxford Peartree Services, Stow on the Wold, Newent, Chepstow, Malmesbury, (2 info controls), Membury Services, Oxford.
Due to the early start on Saturday morning (06:00), and the 2 hour drive necessary to get there, I decided to get a hotel in Oxford and head down on Friday night. I arrived around 9pm and there were several other Audaxers arriving and milling about trying to work out how to use the ridiculous parking meter in the hotel car park. I had pulled into a parking space and the guy next to me had asked me if I was riding the Audax tomorrow, we had a brief discussion and I then recognised his bike from the back cover of Arrivée (this was Alex Napier who’s bike is chosen by Vaarru, to advertise), Alex quickly invited me to ride with him and his friend, so we made a loose plan to meet at 05:30 on Saturday morning to head over to the start together. I was tempted to have a beer as I’d heard a couple of the other Audaxers were going over to the other hotel’s bar. I decided against it and instead spent the time sorting out my kit and having a shower before heading to bed around 11pm.
A poor night’s sleep was had, due to traffic noise, gusting winds, other guests arriving back from nights out in Oxford and the knowledge of an early start. I got up at 04:15 and ate some soaked porridge oats and had a coffee before getting ready for the meet at 05:30. As soon as I opened the door from the hotel lobby to the outside you could tell the strength of the wind. It was vicious.
Alex and his friend (Colin) both had next to no luggage with them and were on expensive, fast looking Titanium bikes – I had enough luggage for 3 people in my bar bag, and this is something I need to work on, I’m always taking too much stuff with me, but I end up using 20% of what I actually take. From the way Alex and Colin were talking, they were planning on a much more aggressive time than I thought I would be able to ride to, so I’d said to them before we started riding that they should head on themselves, and I would stay with them for a while. Well, this went by the wayside straight away as they went through a set of traffic lights as they went red, so they went off leaving the rest of the field waiting at the lights. There was the usual fast paced start from the lights and I had said to myself that if I found myself in groups that were pushing on too much then I would back off, and this is exactly what I did, hence I found myself riding on my own for a while. The wind was cross head, but manageable at this stage, with light rain and a chill in the air.
After 20 minutes or so of solo riding, I was joined by a female rider called Fenella, on a Talbot bike. We got chatting and I learnt that she used to work for Rapha and was now working for Isen Workshop (a joint venture between Matt Talbot and Caren Hartley), we were swiftly joined by a guy called Anton, on a Surly Pacer who also used to work at Rapha, for the Travel department. We spent a while chatting about his experiences working for Rapha, he was a very strong rider and as soon as the road went upwards he was off, not to be seen again. Annoyingly, upon standing up to pedal (to get up a hill) I had accidentally hit the Garmin lap timer button with my knee, and I then thought that the elapsed distance was too short, (displaying – 28, but I knew the distance to first control was 45). I thought the lap timer had affected the overall distance and it was only later that I noticed that the elapsed distance was actually in miles rather than my selected Km. Strange. I stayed with Fenella until the first control at Stow on the Wold, where I had a pastry and a smoothie.
Fenella and I set off from the control together, but the wind had picked up a lot and we found ourselves riding straight into it, along with starting to negotiate some hills. Fenella dropped back from me and I continued onwards at my own pace – outputting unsustainable power due to the difficult conditions. In between Stow on the Wold and Newent controls, the wind was totally out of order. It was so strong, and it seemed that climbing up the many hills made you more exposed to the severity of the wind. At several points I was outputting 300W just to maintain 10Km/h speed, and with my heavy bar bag on the front of the bike, handling was tricky.
I arrived at the Newent control and needed hot food, so ordered some tomato and basil soup, this came quickly and went down well so I was in and out of the control within around 30 minutes. Some other riders had chosen to stop at the village shop as opposed to the cafe. Leaving Newent, I noticed that my power meter wasn’t reading, turns out that when I put my Garmin to sleep at the control it needed to re-pair with the power meter after being in sleep mode – note for further stops. My work colleague had told me that his parents live in a town called Bream which was on the route, and riding through Bream I caught up with a group of 5 or 6 guys from Guilford. These guys were riding bikes that you would typically see on a sportive (not much luggage or kit), and most of them just had shorts on with no longs and one of them even had fingerless gloves on – his hands were frozen. Turns out they were new to Audax and were riding this ride, their longest ever ride in preparation for Mallorca 312. The hills and the wind continued to batter us all through the Forest of Dean (which really reminded me of riding in the French Jura), and down into Chepstow for the next control.
I stopped at a garage in Chepstow and found Fenella again – she had bounced quickly at the Newent control and at Chepstow, she had unfortunately reached the end of her ride. She had had to go deep within herself to get to the 3rd control and she had decided to pack and head home. I had a sandwich, some water and some Lucozade at the garage, chatted with other riders and then pressed on towards the Severn bridge.
From Chepstow to Malmesbury the biggest challenge was actually crossing the Severn bridge – 1.6Km long, 130M up in the air with a 40Mph + cross wind blowing! These were not comfortable conditions for riding across the bridge. The North side cycle path was closed and a diversion was in place. I stopped at the entrance and debated with another rider (Rob), from Audax Club Portsmouth on wether to take the diversion or to proceed though the traffic cones, sensibly we decided to take the diversion onto the south side. I have never ridden in stronger winds. I had to brace myself against the wind, leaning heavily to my right for the whole crossing. At regular points across the bridge there were barriers or gates which momentarily interrupted the wind, which then also interrupted my leaning rhythm and made cycling forward very challenging. Once off the bridge and onto the road, the wind turned from being the enemy to the ally and finally good progress punctuated by a few pesky hills was made to Malmesbury.
I stopped at the Waitrose in Malmesbury, had a coffee, some cold pasta and a rice pudding. Heavy rain started just before leaving the control, and dusk had turned to dark. I left with a few riders, 2 from Audax Club Portsmouth (Rob and Colin) and another guy called Andrew from Dorset, who knew the Portsmouth guys. We weren’t together for too long, the group split with Colin and me riding on from Rob and Andrew. I worked with Colin for a while, before easing off a little, Colin was strong and was riding a bit too hard for me to make the increased effort to stay with him and with over 100Km still to go, I didn’t want to blow up. My front light was not focusing far enough forward to avoid the pot holes, so I stopped and adjusted the angle upwards a little – better but could have gone up more. Through Royal Wooton Basset and up a couple of steep climbs onto the North Wessex Downs. It was very exposed up on the plateau, so more cross winds had to be dealt with along with the continued rain. It was miserable indeed and I was on the lookout for the first info control in Marlborough. Info control was easily found and whilst noting down the number of the restaurant the guys from Guildford caught up, so we all pressed on from there to the next control in Membury Services on the M4.
It was very cold by this time and I wanted a quick stop at the Membury control. Several riders arrived as I was in the control, one of them in a bad way – he had bonked earlier and was suffering from Gastro Intestinal Disorder, so essentially he could not eat anything without throwing it back up. Awful. I left the control with the Guildford guys, and just rode at my own pace. Some of the guys were riding ahead, and then stopping to wait for the rest of their group who were behind, but I just kept riding steadily and eventually a rhythm established with me riding my own pace with the Guildford guys on my wheel. I enjoyed the fruits of pacing myself all day and I was on the last stretch and feeling strong. I was particularly pleased with this, given how hard the day had been. The run back into Oxford was fine, there were no hills to speak of and we were all willing the sights of Oxford to come into view. Through the city centre, a little bit of dodging boozed up revellers, and then we were on a long straight road out of the centre towards Peartree services.
Arrived finally at the finish – 18hours and 15 minutes to do a 317K ride. Thats a few hours longer than my previous 300’s but with that wind and the amount of climbing, I’m not surprised. I got a receipt from the services buying a cup of tea to warm myself up. Having stopped riding I became cold very quickly, and couldn’t get out of my wet clothes quick enough. Changed and warmed by my cup of tea I hit the road – 2 hrs driving to get home. I lasted 20 minutes before I needed to pull over and sleep, I had 1 hour sleeping in the car before getting back to driving. 2 more sleep stops were required to get me home safely at 04:45am. I was pretty battered the following day, with obviously sore legs but the bigger issue was my left ankle area which was worryingly sore around the outer ankle area. Need to keep an eye on that, and maybe ice it or something ahead of the next ride – a 400K.
