Bike rides

Sunday 4th May - Isle of Wight Randonee (short route!)

Stats:

ttm odo 1103.4 dst 41.63 tm 4:15:39 avg 9.7 max 33.5

According to gps: odo 40.48 mov time 4h38m max 32.3 moving avg 8.7 tot time 9h02m

Route: To come, but details at Cycle Island.

The biggest ride I've tackled to date!

A few months ago on uk.rec.cycling the Randonee was touched upon; basically each year the Isle of Wight Wayfarers CTC invite everyone to (almost literally) cycle around the island. The full route takes in 100km and the perimeter of the county; there are checkpoints periodically, and you can start and finish wherever you like. Doing this was out of the question - however, they do offer a 'short' option of 55km. Looking at how I'm getting on I thought there might be the outside chance of me completing this and so I chatted with my friend Andrew about tackling it, thinking that he could do the long version and I could do the short one. The course is shared for the first 15 miles or so, so we figured we could do the first bit together and then go our separate ways, meeting up again back at the beginning.

So it was that we stayed with friends in Southampton and found ourselves on the 9am ferry from Southampton to Cowes. The week before I'd had a fairly heavy cold and I'm still not convinced I was fully over that - and I'd not been out on my bike as much as I'd have liked due to that, work and the weather, but you can't exactly postpone this sort of thing so we went for it anyway. Registration took place at the checkpoint in the ferry car park in East Cowes - and from there we set off.

The first minute or so of the ride was fine. Then we found our first hill. Now, I knew that the IoW was reasonably bumpy - and wasn't expecting it to be completely flat - so I trundled up it slowly, stopping once or twice, and from there we carried on towards the first checkpoint. More on hills later. Anyway, the first section was really quite up and down and I was a little disconcerted - however I managed somehow, with appropriate catch-your-breath stops, to get to the first checkpoint. This was a bit of a boost for me as I suppose it helped spur me on a bit.

It's not a race; it's just the opportunity to pootle round at your own pace, starting and finishing from wherever you like. Consequently, although it was extremely daunting to see and be constantly overtaken by ultra fit lycra-clad guys on their carbon bikes (not many ladies doing it, I noticed) there were enough 'ordinary', less fit people like me on older bikes to make me feel that I was too out of place as an overweight unfit guy on a 15 year old mountain bike. That said, it did feel a little demoralising from time to time, particularly on the inclines up, to be overtaken by a dozen or so people. However, the other participants were a friendly bunch - I'd very often get a 'hi' from them, which was nice.

Anyway, back to the route. Andrew cycled with me to Bembridge, a checkpoint in a school where food (chicken soup!) was available. That section was fairly slow going - my average speed was 9.5mph which, I suppose, given the hills wasn't all that bad. There were a couple of good downhill runs which almost (but not quite) balanced out the uphills! We then split at Bembridge as otherwise he wouldn't have been able to get back to Cowes in a sensible time. I pootled on towards the Alverstone checkpoint.

As I've mentioned before, I expected there to be a few hills - but I was really, really struggling on this section. I'd done 20 miles or so by this point (bearing in mind we'd done 3.5 to get from our friends to the port in Southampton too) and so I was weary and, although I can cope with some hills I just got incredibly demoralised and downhearted on this section because the hills seemed relentless. I was hoping that I was going to be able to cycle the entire route - even on the hills, even if it meant stopping a lot - but I just gave up three of the inclines in the end, and from where I conked out half way up I walked my bike the rest of the way up to the tops/less steep bits. This was a bit of a disappointment to me but in the end it wasn't that much - probably only about half a mile in total overall - and I disengaged my bike computer so it wasn't reflected there. I was on the verge of giving up a couple of times on this stretch; I did however manage to struggle to Alverstone somehow, where I refilled with water and refuelled with a banana and flapjack again.

Alverstone was the turning point for me on the short route; not only it is it where the two routes split, but it's also where the short route joins the NCN route (23?). This NCN track is built, as are many on the mainland, on the route of an old railway line - which meant it was (vaguely) flat! This meant that when I got to Alverstone, I knew it was just a distance thing to worry about rather than any more significant hills. Sure enough, when I got going again on the cycle track I found myself averaging 11-14mph along most of it. This boosted my overall average to about 9.7mph.

There were no other checkpoints on the short route - I had to navigate my way across Newport town centre, which wasn't too bad - and so I just had to keep on going. I finally got to Cowes and caught the chain ferry back to the checkpoint, where I got my certificate (hurrah!) and settled down to wait for Andrew - who arrived about an hour later, having done the full 65m route.

The instructions and signs for the route were generally pretty good, although we encountered several points where the instructions and signage contradicted each other - notably at one set of traffic lights in Bembridge where some people sailed straight over following the instructions and one set of cyclists followed the signs and turned left! Still, we didn't do any major diversions or get lost too much - there were always more bikes along a few minutes later - and I only resorted to checking the OS map with my GPS coordinates once.

The weather wasn't too bad in the end; it was overcast for most of the day, with brighter spells, but the torrential rain we'd feared didn't arrive. It did start drizzling on my for the last 5 miles or so of my ride but it wasn't too bad as it was still warm; I stuck my waterproof on towards the end more to stop myself getting cold than anything else.

So, at the end of the day (literally) we caught the ferry back to Southampton and cycled the 3m back to our friends' house again; I did 41m in the day, beating my previous daily distance record by a few miles, which is one thing to take away from it. Additionally, bearing in mind how hilly some of it was, I suppose it was more of an achievement that I completed it at all.

The question I was asked several times afterwards was - did I enjoy it? Erm, well, yes and no. Some of it was good, and I certainly enjoyed a) cycling with a friend and b) cycling with so many other bikers (I've never cycled with more than about 5 people before now) so that added a sense of community. However, a large part of it was a slog and very disheartening and frankly I didn't enjoy that at all. Would I do it again? Well, similarly... I'm not sure I would, to be honest, as I like 'recreational' cycling, not 'kill yourself on the hills' cycling. I'd (relatively) happily attack that distance again now I think, but not with those hills, because that's pretty much what spoiled the day for me, unfortunately. It was nice to get a certificate at the end, although since it was just me getting it I didn't really share it with anyone. The day didn't put me off cycling, but equally I'm not sure I enjoyed it as much as I'd hoped I would. Interestingly although I was knackered at the end of it, my legs and backside weren't aching as much as I'd feared they would be. I suppose this is a good thing!

The Cycle Island Website says that 1644 cyclists took part this year, of which 207 were doing the short version. It's nice to think that I achieved something though - and I wonder how many of those other 206 people were in a similar position to me, having never done anything like this before. Thanks to the IoW people for organising it.

Added 21st May: Someone else has put the route onto a website, found here. I did the short route, which on their map equates to starting at mile 15 (East Cowes) and doing the same route round to about mile 35. From there we split and I carried on west, then north through Newport and back to Cowes.