After a last minute change of plans for the weekend, we ended up at home so I decided to enter the Mark Cavendish / Tour of Britain sponsored Tour Ride 100. 
I hadn't trained for this but figured my fitness from the #3PeaksByBike a few months earlier would see me through... Well it did... Just!There were two options, a 50mile and a 100mile route... I opted for the 100 mile route which took in much of a previous Tour Of Britain stage out of Stoke, up over the Pennines and over the infamous Gun Hill.
You could choose your own start time between 7.30am and 9.00am... Unfortunately I messed up with this and although I left in a wave at 8.45, at the route split for the 50 / 100 miles I was the only rider to take the 100mile route and it quickly became apparent that I should have left much earlier!I ended up cycling the first 45miles on my own! Fortunately the route was well marked but it did make for a lonely atmosphere! It was morale boosting to catch some riders at around the 50mile mark!
The other thing I underestimated was the volume of climbs... 2,700m of climbs over the 100 miles in total! To put this in perspective, my climb of Ben Nevis earlier in the year was only 1,300metres!
All in all though a great day and an unexpected huge sense of achievement at the finish line!
The moral of the story? Well you can just rock up and do a 100 mile sportive without training properly for it... But don't expect a great time! 8hours 11minutes of slog in total! :-)
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