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! :-)
Welcome to the 'Challenge Hursty' Blog!
The Adventures so far!
Sunday, 5 October 2014
Wednesday, 25 June 2014
#3PeaksByBike for the RNLI ~ 20th to 24th June 2014 ~ £6,750 raised for the RNLI
What began as an idle chat at the coffee machine early in 2014 with a colleague and now friend, Dave McDonald quickly became our #3PeaksByBike challenge. An adventure made possible with a lot of help from work and another friend in particular, Paul Cunningham who acted as our support driver, fellow climber on the hills and general carer for the weekend!
The #3PeaksByBike challenge was to climb the traditional peaks of Snowdon, Scafel Pike and Ben Nevis but cycle the 450 miles in between. We decided to attempt this over four days meaning that we'd be looking at a Mountain climb and at least 100 miles cycling per day.
We spent a lot of time training, a lot of time researching and plotting the route and logistics, a couple of trial runs of certain sections and got a lot of fundraising support from family, friends, colleagues, our employer's charity committee and from suppliers... Dave even bought a bike! All that was left was the event itself! How hard can it be!? ;-)
We kept a Facebook page which was very well supported of our efforts here ~ https://www.facebook.com/pages/RNLI-3-Peaks-By-Bike/1378450009104320?ref=hl but here's some snapshots of the tour as it took place..
Friday 20th June 2014
7am am the foot of Snowdon's Pig Track |
Snowdon Summit! |
A very early start for Paul & Dave travelling from Preston via Sandbach to pick me up and get to Snowdon for a 7am start!
Climb done, start of our epic cycle ride! |
Pit stop at Rhyl RNLI! |
We couldn't have wished for better conditions! Snowdon was conquered in just over 3.5 hours and then we started our 116miles cycle from there to Preston. A fantastic ride along the North Wales coast stopping off to say hello at Rhyl Lifeboat station.
Garmin thought there was a path around the coast just after Bangor but there wasn't! So a hike over the beach with the bikes on our shoulders and a ride through a field to pick up the bike track!
Navigation error! |
A late arrival at 10pm in Preston but felt remarkably good if flagging a bit towards the end!
Saturday 21st June 2014
Cycling past Windemere |
Paul ferrying the bikes around Scafel |
Scafel Summit! |
Running out of daylight! |
13mile/6 hour climb from Great Langdale over the summit, picking up Paul, Matt and Rachael and descending down to Seathwaite for our onward cycle to Carlisle... Another very long day & 98 miles covered on the bikes finishing last night at 10pm just south of Carlilse! Great of Rachael & Matt to support us on the climb!Take away Pizzas for tea and then asleep before our heads hit the pillow in our tents!
Not Scotland without a thistle! |
Border crossing at Gretna |
Crossing the Clyde, Glasgow |
We met up with Paul for a lunch stop at Abington after a puncture repair. and continued on via a carefully selected route through the quieter more bike friendly areas of Glasgow finishing up at Balloch on Loch Lomand at 6.30pm... Could we have gone further? Probably but we wanted to get a good rest and Pub grub at the Drovers Arms on Loch Lomand so wrapped up for the day with time to do it!
Home for the evening! |
Monday 23rd June 2014
Crianlarich |
As we warmed up though on a dedicated cycle path along Loch Lomand it quickly turned to fun again! We met a couple in Crianlarich who made us look lightweights! Both in their 70's, on mountain bikes with all their gear in panniers and rucksacks on their 21st day of Lands End to John'o groats! Much respect!
Ranoch Moor |
The foot of Ben Nevis! |
Beer won! |
Beer won! :-)
Tuesday 24th June 2014
Hitting snow on the ascent |
In the snow in June!? |
Climbing up through low cloud from about 300m upwards to snow at the summit!
10miles hiked in 5hours 15mins.
All in all we had an absolutely epic adventure!
Ben Nevis Summit! |
Here are some stats from our long weekend...
• 422 miles cycled, averaging 105miles/day at just over 14.1mph
• 28.4 miles hiking over Snowdon, Scafel Pike and Ben Nevis
• 20,839 feet of ascents (11,003 on the bike and 9,876 on foot )
• 52 hours 35 minutes of total workout time over the 4.5 days
• 12,964 calories burned!
Happy to share the Garmin GPX plot files for anyone wanting to give this a go... We could well recommend it!
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
2014 Celebrating my 50th year on planet Earth!
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