English
This weekend’s UK Cycling Events Wiggle Super Series New Forest Sportives (say that five times fast!) were so popular they had to add another event to the schedule!
Originally the plan had been to run the Falling Leaves Mtb event on the Saturday and the New Forest 100 road event on the Sunday, with the Road event selling out in record time the decision was made to run another road event on the Saturday too, which also promptly sold out! So with 3 sold out events and the weather forecast to be excellent it was looking likely to be the best weekend of biking this year!
The Wiggle team were on site displaying some Verenti, Felt, Pinarello, Rocky Mountain & GT bikes and handing out Haribo (the ultimate energy chew!) our friends from Satmap were also on hand letting riders try their GPS computers for free! Several of the staff had entered events throughout the weekend, Dan H was riding the 100km Road event on the Saturday & myself & Nick rode the Sunday event.
After a slightly later than planned arrival and a hurried kit-on, I realised that the essential item I had forgotten this time was in fact bike socks!(at least it wasn’t my helmet, shoes or gloves this time!) The ones I had driven there in were comfy, but a little long and a little ‘cheerleader’!
We eventually started our ride about 9:45am by which time the sun was already pretty hot, most riders had sensibly left early to avoid traffic and dehydration.
the route was well marked with the exception of a few signs which had been removed by disgruntled locals (hopefully one day the UK will embrace sportives in the same way as Europe) and there weren’t too many cars on most roads either despite the New Forest being full of families enjoying the good weather. The worst traffic was of the four legged variety, the many horses, ponies, donkeys and cows that roam free range in the area seem to like standing in the road quite a lot, evidence of this issue was to be seen later on in the ride when we came across a Clio that had been well and truly ‘horsed’, needless to say it was a scrapheap job.
Nick and I plodded round the course chatting away and enjoying the sunshine, discussing the merits of various bibshorts, Assos & Craft mostly (the latter of which I’m a big fan of). The rolling terrain kept riders working and there was lots of leapfrogging as the slower riders on the hills used their power to come through again on the flats. Everyone we passed (or passed us!) greeted us with a cheery hello or a comment on the weather, probably one of the friendliest sportives I’ve done.
The feed stations were also extremely well stocked! Rather than the usual plate of bananas, cheap (disgusting) gels and a vat of water, the High 5 stands had swiss rolls, flapjacks, sandwiches, muesli bars, High 5 gels and High 5 drink mix in tanks, I could have stayed there a couple of hours!
Even with the lure of good snacks we pushed onwards through the winding forest roads and the open moorland. As we dropped down into woodland again their was some sort of panic up ahead, the riders in front had hit the infamous Godshill with a sharp 25% gradient, I was running a Campagnolo Record 29t on my bike since I’ve been out in the Austria so a quick drop down to the 39 and away I went on the right, dodging falling riders and those that were snaking around, suddenly beside me a young lads chainset exploded with force, a piece of chainring bounced off my leg as the unfortunate rider lost balance, by the top of the climb 50% of riders had decided to give up and walk, these guys would hate the Dolomites!
The feed station at the top was a welcome site for many especially since there was a well placed bike repair van!
20k or so later we rolled through the finish line in just over 4 hours, which wasn’t bad considering we weren’t really pushing it. The event village was busy with riders and their families enjoying the sunshine, the food on offer was good enough to rival any music festival, with Hog Roast, burgers, draught tap beer and even cupcakes on offer all to the soundtrack of a live band.
The weather often makes or breaks big events like these but the organizers had put so much into the feed stations & after party I think it would have been a great success whatever the weather…
Check out the photos and results below
Results for Sunday
and Saturday’s
and the Falling Leaves Mtb event
